Supernatural Lake

Remembering Supernatural Lake, a short-lived Pandemic-era Wine Bar on Cayuga Lake

Back home and still unemployed, I try to keep the Catskills vibe alive. I make an emergency appointment with my therapist to process my epiphany. My therapist initially cancels because they think the appointment was listed as a mistake. My trip felt like a real game-changer, and I tell my therapist of my desire to drop everything and move there, even though I can’t really afford it. Maybe I can maneuver my way into a remote position, since I assume that the job market in that area isn’t much, and I don’t want to be driving in snow in the middle of winter.

I will also watch movies. Having run into Actor/Musician Justin Rice on Tinker Street in Woodstock, I watch Doomsdays, a 2013 indie film he appears in where he plays a squatter squatting in Catskills vacation homes. I also watch The Dead Don’t Die, Jim Jarmusch’s 2019 zombie film shot partially in Fleishmanns, Delaware County. And, to keep the Woodstock vibe alive—both the town and the festival—I watch the 2019 documentary Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation, and music documentaries like Festival Express, Joni Mitchell: Isle of Wight 1970 where at a pivotal point, she begs the audience to cut her some slack, and Horn With A Heart, a documentary biography of Blues Musician and one time Woodstock resident Paul Butterfield.

Just before Columbus Day in October, I take a second trip to the Catskills. I book a two-night AirBnb in downtown Callicoon, located above a bar and performance venue. This will become the primary place I stay when I visit Sullivan County. Its cheap and conveniently located; I arrive on a Thursday afternoon, and on Friday morning, I set off for the long drive to Woodstock. (I consider visiting other places as well, but they would require for me to get on a Thurway at some point, making me a nervous wreck.). When I arrive in Woodstock, I wander around for a few hours, visiting Levon Helm’s grave at the Woodstock Cemetery and thanking him for the music. I leave between 3 and 3:30 and drive the backroads back to Callicoon, where I am greeted by a beautiful sunset. At the time, I felt exhausted by the extensive drive, yet it is fondly burnished into my memory.

When the initial COVID-19 shutdown happened, I working as a bank teller, and was not among those privileged enough to be able to work from home. Until July 17, 2020, I was considered an “essential worker”, but my employer took the precautions to make sure direct contact with the public was minimal. At the time, my bank had two branches in town: one downtown, with no drive-thru; another located next to a shopping center off of a busy thoroughfare. Prior to COVID, I had been working at the downtown branch. After shutdown, all business would go to the drive-thru location with the lobby closed off. All transactions were done through the drive-thru, which made for some very irate customers.

Management had us alternating between the drive-thru branch and the downtown branch. On the weeks I was assigned to the downtown branch, I was isolated in an office, either making calls to customers and checking in, or going through some very old and sometimes outdated paperwork. On downtime, I looked at news items. Days before I was laid off, I came across an article from Time Out New York about a Manhattan Wine Bar opening a pop-up Wine Bar on Cayuga Lake in Interlaken. It is scheduled to open on July 23rd, and will run until October 31st. Cabins will be available to rent for $450 a night, or $2400 a week. The name of the wine bar is Supernatural Lake, and it will be operated by Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, which has other locations in London and Paris.

The site of Supernatural Lake is right on the Lakefront with its own dock. Several years before, it was a restaurant known as Kidder’s Landing; more recently, it was home to the Busy Bee Market, a General Store for lakesiders that sold coffee and sandwiches made to order. Supernatural Lake’s owner, Caleb Ganzer, found the property on AirBnb with the intention of offering a retreat for his employees. But following the uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, and the indefinite pause of New York City nightlife, Ganzer decided to open up a pop-up bar to keep his employees employed. The Finger Lakes was already in what’s called “Phase 4”, meaning that restaurants could open up very limited, distanced capacity.

Ganzer grew up near Chicago and went to college at the The University of Illinois-Champaign. During his Senior Year, he studied abroad in Paris. Following graduation, he moved to New York and worked with Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Dining Group before moving onto Eleven Madison Park. It was at Eleven Madison Park where he had his first encounter with the Finger Lakes Wine Region. In 2014, he and other staff from Eleven Madison Park came to the Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard to participate in a harvest that would yield the “Bye Bye Blackbird” Cabernet Franc, a wine sold exclusively at Eleven Madison Park and retailed for $25 per glass. By contrast, a bottle of Hermann J. Wiemer Cabernet Franc retails for $29.99.

When Ganzer came to the Grand Opening of Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels in 2014, he wasn’t impressed. “I was looking through the wine list, and I was like, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of weird stuff on this wine list. There were a lot of great wines that people had never heard of, but there were also really bad wines where I was like, ‘Why would you put this on there?’” (The original wine list features two bottles from the mass wine brand Layer Cake.) He had been offered a position at the time of opening, but wasn’t ready to leave Eleven Madison Park at that point. Six months later, the same position came up again. This time, he decided to take it. “For my next step, I wanted to do a wine bar. It was really perfect timing. I went in there and there was still something missing, but I knew there was a lot of potential there.”

Upon his hiring, Ganzer focused on making the bar viable & sustainable. Eventually, he became a partner. It paid off. In 2017, Ganzer was named one of the “Sommeliers of the Year” by Food & Wine magazine, with the publication stating, “Ganzer creates a space where guests who aren’t ‘wine people’ can drink stellar wines casually, by the glass. His background in fine dining comes through in his attentive service (rare in wine bars), while his more playful side comes out in regular wine-themed parties and Compagnie’s ‘guess-the-wine, win-a-bottle’ game.” Compagnie also acquired the reputation as “the hottest industry hang” where the staff wore Hawaiian Shirts and Track Suits (as opposed to three-piece suits). “If you are out on the town with Sommeliers visiting winemakers, off-the-clock-servers, or anyone else in the business, it’s a safe bet that your evening will include a stop at Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels,” Courtney Schiessl wrote at vinepair.com that same year.

He also coordinated day trips to the Finger Lakes, where he and others would leave early, drive to the region, and tour a few wineries before heading back to the city. “Having seen how beautiful this area was and knowing how good the wines are and how still like developing the, the hospitality infrastructure is I wanted to at least add some energy to that and bring some folks up and sort of cross pollinate.”

When the state ordered bars to shut down, Compagnie, like many drinking establishments, initially pivoted to wine sales and delivery. He rented a Zipcar to do deliveries, as most of his clientele were outside Manhattan. “I should’ve bought a car at the beginning of this, but hindsight is 20/20,” he told me. I don’t ask him about this, but he was also apparently involved in Berkshires Direct, a farm-to-home delivery service with the purpose of redirecting produce and goods originally for restaurants in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He told The Hartford Courant in 2021, “The Farmer’s Markets in the city had all this extra produce when the restaurants shut down.”

Three months into doing wine deliveries, Ganzer realized that the pandemic was long-term and deliveries were only going to sustain his business for so long. “That’s not what I got into business for. I needed to figure out something else. I didn’t want to quit or give up. So I figured, ‘let’s throw all our eggs into this new basket and try to find a hotel or AirBnb that was big enough that we could sublease it, have a wine experience, wine hotel, wine camp, whatever you want to call it. I knew there was a way where we could make this work. I just spread a really wide net on AirBnb and VRBO and found this place.”

I make my first visit to Supernatural Lake shortly after my layoff. I visit several times, mainly in the morning, making the 35-minute drive to Interlaken. I order a breakfast sandwich, and coffee at the window they’ve set up, and look out at Beautiful Cayuga Lake. They have patio heat lamps to stave off the chilly morning air. When I’m done eating, I’ll walk the dock out to the lake, and occasionally walk down the road a little bit. They also host pig roasts on Friday nights where live music is played under strict pandemic guidelines. I don’t attend one, but I do go to a Monday Night “Industry Night” dinner. On this occasion, I ran into Kelby Russell, Julia Hoyle, Dave Breeden, and the harvest crews of Red Newt, Hosmer, and Sheldrake Point. I take home a mug, which I promptly stain with turmeric after attempting to make golden milk at home. In spite of my own growing ambivalence toward the area, 2020 is a stellar vintage year for the Finger Lakes. As Cornell Agritech’s Chris Gerling wrote in From Veraison to Harvest, a Wine Industry newsletter in November 2020: “I already miss harvest. Some years I am more than ready for it to be over—occasionally as early as Labor Day—but not in 2020. In a year with its share of ups and downs the vintage quality is a huge ‘up.’ In a year where nothing has felt right or natural, the grape harvest was there for us, in all its beautiful normalcy. I would have felt this way even if the grapes were not spectacular, but hey: no complaints.”

I miss having the opportunity to visit New York City. NYC was ground zero for COVID-19 infections at the onset of the pandemic, so it’s not advisable for me to visit. Later in the fall, I read Anthony DeCurtis’ biography of Lou Reed and download Nico’s 1968 album The Marble Index off of iTunes, as well as listening to songs from Leonard Cohen’s first album, evoking the vibe of an NYC that ceased to exist before I was born. I’m too old and too poor to move to New York, but maybe I have a shot at the Catskills? Maybe I can try to resurrect my long-dormant attempt to be a filmmaker? Even before the pandemic, a few famous people owned second and even first homes in the area, including Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield (Highland Lake), David Cross and Amber Tamblyn (Eldred), and Mark Ruffalo (Callicoon). My visits to Supernatural Lake serve as a nice complement to my new obsession.

The last weekend Supernatural Lake, I interview Ganzer a second time (the first was in September). It was a drizzly Saturday morning. We sit out on the porch, and Ganzer is donning a cobalt blue jumpsuit with the Supernatural Lake logo emblazoned on it. The conversation we had before the interview began with him asking me about my Finger Lakes story. I tell him that my father, who grew up in different towns in Ontario County and graduated from DeSales High School in Geneva, bought property on Seneca Lake north of Dresden in 1975, back when you couldn’t give lakefront property away. The following year, my father built a house for my grandparents. After my parents married in 1980 and shortly before I was born, my father, not wanting to pay two mortgages, moved into the basement and built an addition. I was raised in that house, and attended and graduated school in nearby Penn Yan. For many years, my father commuted back and forth from Dresden to his teaching job in Webster, 20 minutes northeast of Rochester on Lake Ontario.

I don’t tell him this part, but the extensive commute took a toll on my father’s physical and mental health. Between running two bars located several hours away from each other—one of them involuntarily shut down with no certain date of reopening—and running a farm-to-consumer CSA, I wonder if having all of these responsibilities are taking a toll on his physical and mental health. “We’re definitely putting some energy into researching a winter experience,” Ganzer tells me. “This was definitely a big effort, and I’m going to need a little time for this to sort of settle,” Toward the end, I ask him what he enjoyed the most about his time in the Finger Lakes. “Just having extra moments during the day to appreciate what we’re doing.”

He starts to tear up. “It’s good to feel the feels,” he says. “It’s been such an emotional moment for everybody’s lives, just to be able to take a break and still do what we love. I think everybody felt it, you know, everybody who was up here, all our team and the people that were here, all of our guests as well.” He pauses to clarify the purpose of his tears.

“Tears of joy, for the record.”

Supernatural Lake was a one-of-a-kind experience, and while it’s a longshot, I hold out hope that they’ll return for an encore next summer. After its closure, I make one final trip to the Catskills before winter. Wanting to avoid the exhaustive driving I did last time, I spread my stay out into four nights: two in Callicoon, and two in Woodstock at AirBnbs I stayed at previously. It’s the week of the 2020 election, and after Election Day on November 3rd, the election still hasn’t been resolved. On November 5th, I take off for Callicoon. Since I’m going to be on the road, and I’m not sure what the phone reception will be like, I ask my mother to let me know about if any news about the election develops.

There are quiet moments at my AirBnb in Callicoon. I remember spending my evenings reading Debbie Harry’s autobiography Face It (another attempt to preserve a vibe), with her talking about attending Woodstock and realizing that I’m only a fifteen minute drive from the festival site. I walk Callicoon’s untenanted downtown at Sunset, as well as walking across its own bridge, where Pennsylvania waits on the other side. As I walk the bridge, I try to be careful and make sure I drop nothing—especially my phone—into the ravenous Delaware River.

Saturday morning, I leave Callicoon for Woodstock. My GPS takes me on what the late Wesley Willis would call a “War Hell Ride”, but hey! At least the sun is out! Late in the morning, I finally arrive in Liberty and have a brunch at Liberty Diner. When I’m done, I head into the village and park. I look at the antiques store and that’s where I get a text from my mother saying that Biden had won Pennsylvania. I call my mother to confirm, and two guys behind a pick up truck—who appear to be moving some furniture—overhear my conversation and ask me if Biden won. I tell them yes, and the two guys high five.

I make my way to Woodstock, where on the Village Green, people are gathered with signs that say “Bullies Gotta Go!” Passersby honk their horns. A chalkboard sign outside of the store reads, “Ruby Bridges walked so that Kamala could run.” After arriving and relaxing at my AirBnb for a little bit, I do takeout from Dixon’s Roadside on Tinker Street, and my order includes a celebratory margarita. The following day is spent in Kingston, where I walk the streets, visit boutiques and the first New York State Capitol. In the afternoon, I make a stop at a small, LGBTQ+ oriented book shop. I pay a tarot card reader to do a three-card reading where they talk about me having spent the last decade struggling to turn my dreams into a reality. What I need to do, they say, is sit down in front of a body of water—like the Hudson River nearby—and stare at it for ten minutes, then I will have a solution. The next day, a Monday, I head home again. Driving on the curvy, windy, Route 212, I have an idea to set a goal to be a member of the Writers Guild of America, East, by the end of 2024. I will not meet that deadline.

In Feburary 2021, I reach out to Caleb Ganzer to ask if they have any plans to do another pop-up or anything in the Finger Lakes. He responds and informs me that right now, Compagnie’s main focus is getting their Manhattan Wine Bar back up and running.

And that’s the last I hear from Caleb Ganzer.

On July 28, 2021, I get my Google Alert that I’ve set up for Eleven Madison Park, and there’s a news item about Ganzer from The Daily Beast that announces that he’s been arrested and charged with two felony counts for setting fire to two outdoor dining sheds in Lower Manhattan, plus a pile of rubbish. His mugshot showed a dissolved man with a glazed look gazing off into the distance. Another report from The New York Post devoted an entire item to his visit to FLXCursion just a few days before his arrest, with Albany Restaurateur Dominick Putnomo stating, “Never in a million years would I think he would do something like this. Quite frankly if I hadn’t seen the video I wouldn’t have believed the story.” Like Purnomo, I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. Not because I wish Ganzer any ill—if anything, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt—but I see how this could have happened. Eventually, he’ll reach a deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he agrees to pay back the owners for damages, and enter a diversion program, part of which entails him having to undergo substance abuse treatment.

Two years later, Ganzer gave an interview to the New York City news website Hell Gate, where he told his side of the story: he takes responsibility for the fires he set, but has no memory of having set them, believing that he had a dissociative episode as a result of stress and substance abuse. As of 2023, he’s still a partner at Compagnie, but is not mentioned in the press release announcing the opening of a second location that opened in the Flatiron district in 2024. "I'm not the victim here; I fucked up," he tells Adam Robb at Hell Gate. "I’m so grateful nobody got hurt and I can have the presence of mind to acknowledge I did wrong, and I want to do right.” He clarifies that he’s not sober, but on a “Sobriety Journey”. Newer items, such as a “Phony Negroni” and non-alcoholic beers, appear on Compagnie’s menu under the heading of “Inclusive Beverages”, which may also be a reflection of the current beverage market as much as it is Ganzer’s newfound sense of restraint.

In 2022, a new restaurant, event center, and luxury lodging venue, Cayuga Shoreline, opens at the former site of Supernatural Lake. The Ithaca Voice article announcing its opening makes no mention of its short-lived predecessor. Perhaps down the road, another enterprising, cutting-edge, New York City Wine Bar will take Compagnie’s lead and open another lakefront pop-up in the Finger Lakes. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait until another pandemic for that to happen.