(DemocratandChronicle) - ”It was like the end of the world,” Rick Rainey recalled of his journey to Forge Cellars in Burdett, Schuyler County, shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday. The co-owner of the winery drove at a crawl as he made his way through "colossal washout after colossal washout after colossal washout." Some of the farmers nearby said it was the worst flood in the area since 1972, he said. 

But a day later, the winery is open for tasting appointments and the vineyard is generally in good shape, other than a deeper than usual gully flowing down the hill. 

"It shed the water quite well," he said. Rainey attributes some of that to the winery trying a new technique of growing grass between and underneath the vines this year. He believes the grass may have helped stave off erosion.