20 years since creating the Finger Lakes first, truly “Dry” Riesling

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DRY, EXPRESSIVE, TERROIR-DRIVEN FINGER LAKES WINES

Exactly 20 years ago Ravines Wine Cellars was born thanks to mission of Morten and Lisa Hallgren – to create truly dry Riesling in the Finger Lakes. Since their first vintage which saw great acclaim in 2002, Ravines has grown into one of the top wine destinations in the Eastern United States and elevated the perception of Finger Lakes wines in the process. Still to this day Ravines flagship varietal and flagship wine is the Dry Riesling, which has made Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines three times in previous recent vintages.

“TOP 100 WINERIES”

“TOP 100 WINES”

“TOP 20 WINES, BEST U.S. RIESLING”

To read the whole background story about Morten, Lisa and Ravines please click here or scroll to the top of the page to venture around the website.

Turning to this year’s 2017 Dry Riesling, the Wine Advocate’s Mark Squires wrote (giving it 90 points):

“This is another example of how fine the Dry Riesling category is in the Finger Lakes. The prices are reasonable, the quality is high and the wines are available (there are more than 6,000 cases of this, out of the winery’s 26,000 or so for 2017). Intense, focused and able to age, this is a classic expression of Riesling… Store this well and there will be no rush approaching it for more than a decade. It might do 20 years from the vintage date. I’ve said this a few times in this report, but this is certainly another time to trot this out given the quality, aging ability, price and availability: You may need to put your name on one of those cases.”

Correspondingly, in an article by the world renowned Riesling website and social media giant “Heroes of Riesling”, authored by Sandra Fehr, she compliments the minerality and unique aging abilities of Ravines’ Dry Rieslings. She writes, “If you love dry wines this is the place to be. We spend quite some time with Morten in his tasting room. First, we did barrel tastings of the 2018 vintage – very good Rieslings are waiting to be bottled. Then, we tried the 2016 and 2017 vintages where you already got a good idea of how much potential is waiting here. Especially the Argentsinger vineyard offers a complexity that can easily be compared to the German Grosses Gewächs or the French Grand Cru level. Deep, crisp, elegant and super mineralic.”

To read the article titled Ravines Wines–The driest Finger Lakes Rieslings and to see tasting notes for different years of our Riesling wines, please check it out here.

You may also head to our Articles and Press page to see the many stories about Ravines through the years, including many by lead wine writer, Eric Asimov, of the New York Times, praising Ravines Dry Riesling wines for their excellence, affordability and availability across the United States.

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