Ravines Wine Cellars

A protégé of the late Willy Frank of Dr. Konstantin Frank, Ravines’ Provence-born winemaker Morten Hallgren has made a gorgeous dry Riesling. The wine, along with others emerging from the region, is on the cutting edge of what is perhaps America’s best appellations for producing world-class Riesling.

This wine has some of that telltale petrol aroma (which the Germans euphemistically call “toast”) that for me signals Riesling’s typical minerality. Also on the nose are smells of dried apricots, while the texture on the palate is substantial.

With an imperceptible trace of residual sugar (0.3), the wine finishes very dry. Hallgren told me that he thinks he makes “one of the drier” Rieslings in the region and for this wine he was going after minerality and floral characteristics; and I believe he’s achieved this.

The grapes were sourced from a quartet of vineyards, whose vines range in age from 10-to-20 years. The sources are the Argetsinger Vineyard (40-45% of the blend) on Seneca Lake, Serenity Vineyard (15%), also on Seneca, Shaw (15%) on Keuka, and Hobbits Hollow (30 %) on Skaneateles Lake. The stated alcohol is 12.5 percent, and there were 1,300 cases produced.

Reviewed July 16, 2007 by Alan Goldfarb.