Wine & Spirits Magazine: Ravines in Top 100 Wineries

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Each year, Wine & Spirits Magazine chooses 100 wineries from around the world as hallmarks of the industry. Ravines Wine Cellars was selected for producing a variety of high quality wines. 

Land Baron:  Since moving to New York’s Finger Lakes in 1999, Denmark-born Morten Hallgren and his wife, Lisa, have been slowly putting together a Riesling-focused empire, expanding to vineyard sites on Keuka Lake and on the east side of Seneca Lake, as well as another 60 acres in Geneva, where they farm White Springs, now there home vineyard.”  “With the welcome addition of the Argetsinger Vineyard, says Hallgren, “we will be fully estate grown by next year.”  With some 130 acres planted, their vineyards represent one of the largest vinifera estate in the region.”  

White Springs:  the 2015 vintage was Hallgren’s fifth at White Springs, the facility and vinyeard he purchased in 2010 on the north end of Seneca Lake near Geneva, The 59-acre property is planed on the classic Finger Lakess loam series called honeyoye, over limestone. Hallgren believes the limestone gives their white wines, both chardonnay and riesling, a distinctive mineral tone, edgy and firm. In 2015, a relatively uneventful growing season was brought to a sudden end when, on October 17, a cold snap took tempeatures down to 17 degrees, and he was obliged to pick. As a result the 2015 White Springs is perhaps even more edgy than most years, with a thrilling, mouthwatering lemon-lime flavor and pronounced, salty tanginess. It’s a vintage with the mineral underpinnings to age beautifully.

2015 Dry Riesling, White Springs Vineyard

93 Points/ Best US Rieslings

2015 Chardonnay

90 points/ Best American Chardonnays

2015 Cabernet Franc

91 Points  

” New Reds: While Ravines has earned its reputation for riesling,(as well as an espedially nervy, Chablis-like chardonnay–check out the 2015) Hallgren has also become adept at making reds, bottling a Bordeaux-inspired blend, a pinot noir and a cabernet franc–one of the top Finger Lakes red we tasted this year. made from the lighter fruitier lots that didn’t go into the Bordeaux blend, the 2015 Franc is a shlyly foral red with scents fo violets and smoke, thyme ane mulberry, a joy to chill down and drink.” –P.J.C. 

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