Remember when Funny Cide, the humble New York horse, left the elites behind and won the Kentucky Derby in 2003? Something similar happened at the 2004 San Francisco International Wine Competition when a humble New York wine, Heron Hill Winery’s Ingle Vineyard Johannisberg Riesling, Vintage 2002, beat out a field of more than 3,000 other white wines to win “Best of Show White Wine.” Numerous highly pedigreed favorites, possibly including some of yours and mine, ate the dust of this dark horse from the Finger Lakes. Yet Heron Hill’s wines were then, and until now, absent at Manhattan wine shops. “I’d been down to talk to Zachys and Morrell,” vineyard owner John Ingle said. “They looked me in the eye and said that nobody asks for our kind of wine. It was frustrating.”

This month, Heron Hill is finally being introduced locally by House of Burgundy, a major distributor, giving New Yorkers their first chance to try these wines without heading up to Hammondsport or ordering online.

Heron Hill’s victory in San Francisco capped a 25-year effort by Mr. Ingle to validate the Finger Lakes region as prime Riesling country. It’s brutal country as well. “They say the vines need to suffer to make a great wine,” said Mr. Ingle during a lunch last week at Heron Hill’s handsome new winery and visitors center overlooking Keuka Lake. “Well, we feel like we’ve kind of cornered the market on suffering here.”

The lowest point was the “Christmas Massacre” of 1981, when the temperature dropped from 20 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 20 degrees in 10 hours, canceling out the next season’s crop. Extreme cold again killed off the crop in 2003. In a practice unknown in more moderate climes, dirt is now “hilled up” around the base of each vine at Heron Hill in order to protect it from the Polar Express. This is a job not for machinery but for two hands and a shovel. In spring, each mound must be removed. “Everywhere else, it’s a given that each year you’ll get a crop,” said Mr. Ingle. “Here, we go through so much extra work just to have the prospect of having a crop.”

Heron Hill remained a local secret until Mr. Ingle hired Thomas Laszlo as head winemaker in 2002. Born in Canada of Hungarian parents, Mr. Laszlo had won critical kudos for wines he’d made in Hungary, especially Tokay. “I told Tom to buy whatever equipment he needed and my wife and I would ante up,” said Mr. Ingle. A major purchase was a 6-ton Bucher wine press, “the Cadillac of its kind,” which replaced an old crusher-de-stemmer that, said Mr. Ingle, “beat the hell out of the grapes.” Mr. Laszlo promptly made the Johannisberg Riesling that triumphed in San Francisco. Be advised, however, that fruit bombing is not Mr. Ingle’s style. Structure, minerality, and subtlety are foremost. “I don’t like to turn up the volume too high,” Mr. Ingle said. One of the great things about Riesling, Mr. Laszlo pointed out, “is that you can make four different versions – dry, semi-dry, late harvest, and ice wine.” It’s ice wine that gives the Finger Lakes a leg up on more temperate regions. The technique, perfected in Germany, requires waiting to harvest until late-hanging grapes begin to freeze on the vines, usually on a December night. The frozen water crystals separate out of the grapes during pressing, leaving behind an intense nectar. Mr. Laszlo’s 2003 ice wine, Heron Hill’s first, is all grace and weightlessness, despite its high sugar content. Priced at $99.99, it may be the most expensive New York state wine ever. “If you saw how we’re running around in the middle of the night, picking grape by grape,” said Mr. Ingle, “and how little juice we get, you wouldn’t think this wine is overpriced.”

The Rochester-born Mr. Ingle met his wife-to-be, Josephine, on their first day of classes at the University of Denver in 1967. Hard-core hippies, they settled into a two room cabin, heated with only a woodstove, on Seneca Point overlooking Canandaigua Lake, the westernmost of the Finger Lakes. After helping friends harvest grapes, the couple planted the original Ingle Vineyard in the mid-1970s. Its sandy, gravelly soil proved well suited to Riesling. But, said Mr. Ingle, “we soon realized that we weren’t on the wine tourist trail, so I bought property next to some well-known wineries [Bully Hill and Vinifera Wine Cellars] overlooking Keuka Lake about an hour away.”

While it may appear that Heron Hill has lots of competition from the other vineyards blanketing the slopes of Keuka Lake, most are planted with native grapes, like Concord and Niagara, that can’t compete with the European varieties grown by Mr. Ingle, which include chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet franc (while Heron Hill’s Riesling is world-class, the reds are not). Unlike Mr. Ingle’s grapes, the native varieties are machine-pruned and -harvested. “You see boot prints, not tire prints, in my vineyards,” he said. “Sometimes my neighbors make fun of me, and I point out that the Riesling grapes in my pickup truck are worth more than their semis loaded up with Concord.” While Concord grapes last year fetched about $250 a ton, Riesling was going for $1,550 a ton, reportedly the highest price achieved by any New York state white grape. “When pinot grigio got hot as a white wine,” said Mr. Ingle, “I was happy, because I figured that Riesling would be next. I thank God that I’ve lived long enough to see my grape finally come around.”

Heron Hill Winery, 9301 Country Route 76, Hammondsport, N.Y. Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., 800-441-4241, www.heronhill.com.

Recommended Wines

HERON HILL INGLE VINEYARD JOHANNISBERG RIESLING 2002 ($24.95 AT THE WINERY OR ONLINE)
The San Francisco champ, but not because it screamed, “Look at me.” Lemony and stony, with a sneaky fullness that comes on slowly. Hard to imagine tiring of this wine.

HERON HILL ECLIPSE WHITE WINE 2002 ($14.99)
A blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and pinot gris, this wine has flesh, flash, and citrus fruit. Reasonable alcohol (12.5%) lends restraint. Comes in a snazzy frosted bottle that evokes a lunar eclipse in a clear night sky.

HERON HILL LATE HARVEST RIESLING 2002 ($37.50)
Made from grapes shriveled by “noble rot.” Ripe apricot aromas with notes of orange peel and honey added in the mouth. Delivers an enlivening kick of activity. A solo sipper.

HERON HILL ICE WINE 2003 ($99.99 AT THE WINERY OR ONLINE)
“You’re not gonna be bowled over by sugar and honey caramel flavors,” Tom Laszlo said of this wine. Enormously fresh and intense citrus flavors that somehow seems weightless. “I don’t like wines that fatigue,” said Mr. Laszlo, and this one doesn’t, despite its intensity.

Note: According to the distributor, Heron Hill Wines are currently available or are being shipped to Drink in Manhattan (212-737-1177), Zachys in Scarsdale (866-922-4971), Broadway Wines in Astoria (718-278-4099), and Post Wines in Syosset (516-921-1820).