TN: 2023 Apollo's Praise Scheurebe (USA, New York, Finger Lakes, Seneca Lake)

WINE TALK
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  • 2023 Apollo's Praise Scheurebe - USA, New York, Finger Lakes, Seneca Lake (5/13/2024)
    A Berserkerday wine and the inaugural vintage. Each year, I support a small new winery, preferably from New York, on Berserkerday. This year I picked Apollo's Praise - and I'm glad that I did. I do not have a lot of experience with Scheurebe, but Muller Catoir was excellent, so this seemed a natural choice as a grape that grows in a climate (the Finger Lakes) that is also hospitable to Riesling.

    This wine has a bit of flower on the nose (honeysuckle?) and a mélange of fruit on the palate, including apricots, orange citrus and apple. It went from delivery to down the gullet in 48 hours, which might have been my mistake and the cause of the one negative characteristic - a tiny bitterness on the back of the palate. Generally, if I can identify a negative characteristic, I keep a rating below 90, but the rest of this wine was so good that I pushed it up. It lost some of the bitterness after time in the glass, and if it was my fault for not letting it rest after delivery, then the next bottle will get to 92 points. I still have some in the bottle (one of the advantages of a screw cap is that it is easier to deal with not drinking the whole bottle in one sitting) and will check in on it tomorrow.

    It is bone dry (2 gms rs per liter) but the nose and palate are so light and fruity than my wife guessed that there was more sugar. The ABV was in the mid 12%s, so it was an easy drink. I will definitely buy this again. If you like lighter, airy wines but that ooze fruit, I strongly recommend this.

    Nice pairing with Halibut in a Goan coconut-based sauce. The acidity was just right to cut through the sauce without overpowering the fish. (90 points)

Posted from CellarTracker

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Thanks for the support and for the kind words! In the instance of this wine, it isn’t just our inaugural vintage (which it is), it is also the first time a Scheurebe has ever been made on the East Coast. We planted it at Lahoma Vineyards in 2019 (not knowing we would eventually purchase the site), and 2023 was the first commercial crop of it.

For my part, I’d say I am quite happy with how our first crack at it turned out, but also can’t wait to make it again this year and continue making it as the vines mature. Even in barrel and tank this wine evolved remarkably from mid-December until April bottling, becoming more and more effusive and evolving away from the flinty reduction it started with. Going to be a fun one to keep tabs on.

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