While difficult to comprehend, it has now been 25 years since Lisa and I started the Ravines Wine Cellars project on Keuka Lake. While Ravines has certainly evolved over those many years, the mission remains the same: produce high-quality, age-worthy wines of distinction that reflect their vineyard origins and the vintages. From our first vintage onwards, we suspected that our wines might have considerable aging potential; a concept that we have often shared with you. Well, after 25 years, it’s time to pull bottles out of our fieldstone basement, open them and share them with you for evaluation. We will be opening bottles of Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, sparkling wine, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Meritage/Maximilien and MMX/Le Petit Caporal going back close to the very beginning of Ravines. We have close to 170 different wines to choose from before we narrow it down a little to a more reasonable number. So why hold such a comprehensive tasting of Ravines wines you might ask? The answer is because we can and because we should.
While the World of wine has changed a great deal over the last 30 -40 years, some things remain the same. Producing interesting, age-worthy wines with distinct vintage characteristics is precisely what sets cool climate wine regions aside from the rest. Part of the motivation is to see where the Finger Lakes region fits into the great scheme of things. As far as I know, no other Finger Lakes has held or is likely to hold such a comprehensive tasting. We have been quite diligent about stashing wine aside since our very first vintage. It is now time to see how the wines have aged; to reflect not only on the wines of Ravines but those of the Finger Lakes region as a whole. For too many years North America has lacked a wine region with these cherished characteristics. It’s time to see if the moment has arrived to acknowledge the Finger Lakes region as a cool climate wine region with these sought after attributes. Will the wines stand up to time. Look for information on the upcoming retrospective tastings.