As American yearly wine consumption rises to record levels, local vineyards in the Finger Lakes region and on Long Island, as well as Manhattan wine shops, have experienced increased sales they attribute to changes in attitudes and a boom in interest in wine among younger drinkers.

The Wine Market Council’s 2005 national consumer tracking study showed a 16 million-case increase in sales between 2003 and 2005. And New York wineries were second only to Californian vineyards in purchases over the past three months by core drinkers – those who drink wine weekly or daily, amounting to 14% of all adults.

All this bodes well for New York bottlers like Long Island-based Pellegrini Vineyards, which has enjoyed a roughly 10% increase in sales over the last three years, the vineyard’s sales and op erations manager Peter DeMeo, said.

New York vineyard owners echoed the study’s reasons for the increase in wine consumption, citing more widespread acceptance of wine’s health benefits as a leading cause. “You used to be made to feel like a criminal if you had a glass of wine. Now you’re being told, even by your doctor, that it’s okay,” an owner of Finger Lakes-based Standing Stone Vineyards, Marti Macinski, said.

Young people have taken a particularly keen interest in wine,the owner of McGregor Vineyard and Winery, John McGregor, said. Young buyers “aren’t stereotypical of what people think of college-age students drinking beer all the time,” the wine maker, who is based in the Finger Lakes, said.”They’re very interested in learning about it and making it a part of their lifestyle.”

The nationwide increase signals a change in the way wine is perceived, according to the owner of Zachys, Jeffrey Zacharia, who said wine has become “less intimidating” to “blue-collar people.”

Despite the increase in wine sales in recent years, New York producers do not yet rival Californian vineyards and face uphill battles to turn a profit. “Even if you planted every square inch on the North Fork, you wouldn’t come to the size of a small portion of the California operation,” the president of Long Island-based Paumanok Vineyards, Charles Massoud, said.

In addition, the potential for adverse weather conditions, such as the especially cold 2004 winter that permanently ruined two-thirds of Mrs. Macinski’s winter crops and 5% of her vines, make running New York wineries a gamble. “The goal is really to break even,” Mr. Massoud said. “If you’re going to make money, I have a friend who runs a mutual fund.”