Apollo's Praise: EXTENDED! One more “Simply The Best” and a sixth bottle of Knoll Riesling drops into a random package + BD exclusive “Lovejoy” blend!

Greetings, Wine Berserkers!

(On a mission and know what you want? This link will take you to our store straight away.)

We are so excited to be back for BD16 after your enthusiasm last year truly helped us get our small winery off the ground! This community is renowned for its support of small wineries, and in our instance we are living proof of what can happen both during Berserker Day and in the forum the whole year through :cheers:

So, who are we?

We’re Apollo’s Praise, aka Kelby and Julia, winemakers who fell in love with the Finger Lakes, and one another, when we were fresh out of college in 2009 - but only purchased our own vineyard and started a winery in 2023. Last year we came to BD15 with nothing but our story and a promise of wine to come, and you all took a leap of faith along with us. :foilhat:

Thankfully, in the year that followed, the response to the wines justified your help in getting us off the ground, or so Decanter, VinePair, The New Wine Review, Jamie Goode, and James Suckling seem to think. We’ve had a fast start and a remarkable run of press, and we’re back for year two!

In our offers below you’ll see we have one offer that recaps some of our first vintage highlights and is ready to ship now (or whenever winter relinquishes its icy grip). We would have more 2023 vintage offers… but you sold us all out in a hurry last year! So the remaining offers will be similar to last year: futures on our wines that will ship when they are bottled. Except this time you’ll know what’s in store, not to mention the fact that 2024 was an all-timer vintage for the Finger Lakes!

Wine and Glee Club Member? Sign into your account and you’ll get an additional 10% off all the packages below! (Or let us know if you have any difficulties!)

Shipping: For BD16 only, $20 Flat rate; Free for 12+ bottles!

  • We ship to all states EXCEPT: AR, DE, MS, RI, SD, UT.
  • MI, NJ, and AL orders, two packages below will say that there are wines in them that can’t (yet) be shipped to your state… rather than having you miss out, please place the order as a ‘Pick Up’ and we’ll take care of it from there.
  • AK and HI orders, the shipping promo won’t work for these destinations, but reach out and we’ll strike an equally helpful deal.

Shop all our offers here anytime, or read on for individual packages! (Discounts and shipping specials are automatically applied in your cart.)

No. 1 - Simply The Best

$150 for Tina Turner approved, ready to ship 6-pack of our 2023 Greatest Hits, Including Two Top-50 Wines

Every great band has to have a greatest hits collection, but how often can you do that in year one? This six pack includes some of our favorite 2023 wines, including two different wines that appeared on Top 50 year-end lists, and neither of them are even our highest rated. (We almost named this pack “You’re The Top,” but weren’t sure we’d find many other Cole Porter fans out there.)

Note that your sixth wine will be a “Dealer’s Choice” drawn randomly from one of the few other bottles we have left from 2023. For every 10 of these offers that we sell, someone will receive a bottle of the 2023 Knoll as their sixth wine, a James Suckling/Stuart Pigott 97 point wine that retails for $75 alone!

  • 2023 Riesling [Kabinett] - Decanter Top 50 US Wines of the year - the only FLX wine to make the list! Decanter: 93. JS: 93.
  • 2023 Grüner Veltliner - Vinepair Top 50 Wines of the year. JS: 94.
  • 2023 Chardonnay - The sleeper hit, in that no one is ready for this wine to hit so hard. What can we say, Julia crushed it. JS: 95.
  • 2023 Cabernet Franc, Nutt Road Vineyard - The every night red wine of our dreams: bramble fruit, medium bodied, and refreshing. JS: 92.
  • 2023 Cabernet Franc - Lahoma Vineyard - Our estate Cabernet Franc, fermented and aged in a large oak tank for more texture and Old World earthiness. JS: 94.
  • Dealer’s Choice - A unique sixth wine (not one of the five above).
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No. 2 - And The Riesling Is You

A Six Bottle Lahoma Vineyard 2024 Riesling Horizontal for $200!

You’re either here because you know Finger Lakes Riesling is where it’s at, or because you are a Hoobastank fan. Either way, welcome! This six pack is a celebration of Lahoma Vineyard and the remarkable Rieslings that come off its unique sandstone soils. 2024 was a banner year across the Finger Lakes, and we took advantage of it to make a full suite of Riesling styles. These will be bottled up later this summer to maximize lees aging, but what a treat you’ll be in for.

  • 2x 2024 Dry Riesling - Our flagship Dry Riesling blended from across the vineyard, zippy and orange fruited. As our most popular wine, we’ve included two.
  • 2024 Riesling [Kabinett] - Our Kabinett expression, and a hidden gem. The 2023 turned heads so quickly last year it is remarkable no one got whiplash.
  • 2024 ‘Pentecostal Block’ Dry Riesling - While Lahoma is known for The Knoll (see below), the next hillock to the north has a character all its own and we wanted to highlight it as our ‘Premier Cru’ with this vintage. Opulent, rich, and red grapefruit driven, this is a chance to get in on the ground floor with this cuvee.
  • 2024 ‘Pentecostal Block’ Riesling [Spätlese] - From the same block above, this is a special pick that we allowed to coast in at a classic Spätlese stop point. Only 600 bottles will be made, but we’re excited to see how folks respond to it!
  • 2024 ‘The Knoll’ Dry Riesling - The wine that we pour everything into, both in the vineyard and in the cellar, this is our peak expression of Dry Riesling. Textured, concentrated, and laced with smoky grapefruit, The Knoll is a beast all its own and is especially promising coming from the spectacular 2024 vintage.
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No. 3a - All You Need is Love(joy)

The Wine Berserker Crowd Funded Wine, back for 2024! Three for $100!

Cue The Beatles, because there could not be a more appropriate title for this offer! This is the Wine Berserker Wine: we pitched it to you all on BD15 with a promise to make it if we had enough orders, and you came through with all the love to make it happen! A blend of the three grapes off our iconic Knoll, this Grüner/Chard/Riesling ends up being somewhere between Alsace and Bordeaux Blanc - and the 2023 picked up a 95 from Stuart Pigott for James Suckling. We were so glad we could make it in 2023, and with the calibre of the 2024 vintage how could we not offer it again? Mind you, this is the most exclusive wine we make: If you want to buy it directly, you have to be a Wine Berserker.

No. 3b - All You Need is Love(joy) DIY Add-On!

The 2024 Lovejoy pack, plus a bottle each of the three constituent wines for $200 total!

For the real wine geeks out there, we’re also offering this six pack version that will include the three bottles of Lovejoy, as well as a bottle each of The Knoll Riesling, Grüner, and Chardonnay! You needn’t make your own blend, but it is fun to open up a bottle of any component wine along with the Lovejoy to see how they speak to one another!
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No. 4 - An American in Paris

A Bistro Ready Red Three Pack for $75

Much like a Gershwin composition, with this three pack we are wearing our heart on our sleeves… at least in terms of our spiritual inspiration for red wine. While the common Finger Lakes paradigm is for Germanic White Wines, for red wines at Apollo’s Praise, Julia and I can’t help but go back to the Parisian Bistros that started our relationship. Charming, medium bodied, food friendly; these are the reds we want to open every day. This package features one bottle of the newly christened ‘Picardie’ Cabernet Franc, a sans oak style that calls out for pâté, and two bottles of our first ever vintage of Gamay (and one of the few Gamay plantings in the entire region). Off the warm and gravelly soils of our ‘Bridge’ planting, we’ve been waiting seven years for this moment and can’t wait to share it with you all.
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Turn It To Eleven - Buy More, Save More:

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For those of you who know exactly what you want, this is the chance to pre-order a few of our most popular wines. Put in your order for 3 bottles, 6 bottles, or a full case of any wine below and you’ll get our best offer of the year as a thank you! Note that the discount will apply automatically in your cart for the given wine as you add one, two, or four of the 3-packs.

2024 ‘The Knoll’ Riesling - For the trophy hunters out there!

  • 3 for $200, 6 for $350, or 12 for $600 :exploding_head:

2024 Dry Riesling - Everyday splendor.

  • 3 for $60, 6 for $110, or 12 for $200. Needless to say, you won’t see that price again!

2024 Cabernet Franc 'Picardie - Our sans oak style, formerly ‘Nutt Road Vineyard’

  • 3 for $75, 6 for $140, or 12 for $250. For all our red wine fans out there.

And there you have it, fellow Berserkers, our BD16 offers!

We hope you find many things to intrigue you, and we especially hope you had fun reading through it. Give us a shout and post below with any song lyrics or references you especially appreciated or would suggest for the future!

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Glad you were on the presale! In for a No.1 and a couple of 4s. Cheers!

BTW, the glee club member question link needs to be updated, the url is doubled.

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Happy to get the limited stock of these out to presale buyers - thanks for the note!

Link fixed as well, ah the foibles of CTRL+V…

FYI, the BD16WineClub code isn’t working for me at checkout…

Are you logged in with the same email you used for your Wine and Glee Club Membership? It should auto-apply in your cart (i.e. no need to type in the code) - but let me know if that isn’t the case and I can look into it for you!

In for a #2 and a double Magnum of the Knoll!! :sunglasses:
Fyi, the BD16WineClub code didn’t work for me also.

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oh you know i’m in for the LOVEJOY

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High praise given you opened a bottle this past year - glad it is still in rotation!

And thank you @Juan_S for the all-in Riesling love! The Double Mag of Knoll also comes with a program to check the bottle and replace the cork every 25 years, if it makes it that long. We only bottle 13 per year, we care about where they end up!

Lovejoy is back!! Cheers Kelby and cheers to BerserkerDay!!

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Thank you Erica! Happy Berserker Day to you!

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Oh amazing! Our visit to Red Newt when you were at the helm is what made my wife (then fiancee) and I fall in love with FLX and decide to get married there! We haven’t had a chance to visit Apollo’s Praise yet so we’ll have to stock up now!

Thanks Kelby

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What a kind sentiment - we’re so glad to hear that visit was so impactful! Indeed, feel free to grab some Apollo’s Praise today, whether the 2023 mixpack that is ready to go or the 2024 cellar stockers :cheers:

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Hi Kelby - as a club member, is there a way to have my order ship with the next club shipment?

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In for 1 & 2

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Hello! I can answer that one for you! You can set the order to pickup and we’ll take care of it on our end!

In for a 6-pack of Riesling. Thanks for providing an option for Michigan!

Thank you!! We absolutely love your wines and what you are doing! Keep up the amazing work.

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That’s the way to go! Bonus is that you’ll get some wines headed your way soon while you wait for the 2024s!

@Mike_Rotondo what Sarah said - set it as a pick up and we’ll get it in your club shipment. She is our first full time hire (thanks to BD15!), a GM to help out with these very questions.

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