Life was anything but easy growing up on Cutler Street during the early 1940s. At the time, the bustling street in Schenectady’s Mont Pleasant neighborhood was crowded with low-income and immigrant families. Poverty was common, and there was seldom time to do anything but work.
The knees of his blue jeans are caked in dirt and his hands are permanently dirty, but Michael DiCrescenzo would rather wear jeans and a dirty T-shirt to work than a suit jacket and tie.
At 31, DiCrescenzo, who has a degree in business management from SUNY Plattsburgh, has rejected a life behind a desk and hopes to make a life as a vintner.
DiCrescenzo’s father, Louis Franco DiCrescenzo, bought the vineyard for his retirement. As an Italian immigrant who came to America when he was 23, DiCrescenzo, is no stranger to making wine and growing grapes. In Italy, his family had a vineyard and grew other types of fruit. The elder DiCrescenzo taught his son the art of wine making when he was a child. Posted on June 30, 2009.
Mike DiCrescenzo, and his father Louis DiCrescenzo, co-owners of Altamont Vineyard and Winery in Altamont. The DiCrescenzo family bought vineyard three years ago.
Grape phylloxera, a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. These tiny, pale yellow sap-sucking insects, related to aphids, feed on the roots and leaves of grapevines depending on the phylloxera genetic strain.
DiCrescenzo stands in the fermenation and storage barn next to the vineyard. Fermentation takes place in the stainless steel tanks. The wine is then stored in 225-litre oak casks.
