Winemaker Notes
This Riesling is voluptuous and racy with bright citrus aromas in the nose, a perfectly balanced palate with a luscious sweetness and edgy acidity, and a lingering finish. The Knoll Riesling captures the quintessential personality of Finger Lakes Riesling.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has so much dried and bitter citrus character with spicy white pepper and hints of ginseng. Medium-bodied, compact and layered. Vibrant and spicy. Esoteric and enjoyable.
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Vinous
The 2015 Riesling The Knoll is a testament to the ageability of Finger Lakes Riesling. At ten years of age, it presents a deep golden color in the glass. Cool-toned and sensual in its aromatics, the 2015 has a botrytis-like quality on the nose that evokes honey-drenched fresh flowers and pears. Gorgeously weighted with saline minerality, it’s a broad, texturally rich wine with a very long tail. Time has softened the acidity, which was likely rather sharp in its youth, but this is still so fresh.
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Wine Enthusiast
Sourced from a vineyard on the west side of Seneca Lake, this semidry wine offers sunny aromas of canned peach, yellow blossoms and saffron on the nose. The medium-bodied palate is luscious and creamy in feel, with a grip of dried apricot rind and focused acidity providing a fine counterbalance. It offers excellent concentration, depth and balance.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Riesling The Knoll - Lahoma Vineyards is from Seneca Lake, with four grams of residual sugar, 7.5 of total acidity and 13.2% alcohol. When last seen, this looked pretty fine, this being only the third vintage of this bottling. Lively and bright, this has a touch of the grapefruit that I saw on the Tango Oaks, but here it is a more minor nuance (or, nuisance, depending on your view). Expressive, a little delicate, but surprisingly persistent, this young Riesling is on track to develop and age well. It has the structure and the concentration.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
As the most historic wine-producing region in New York state, winemaking in the Finger Lakes area dates back to the 1820s and today as a region, accounts for 90% of the state’s total wine production.
Its narrow and deep lakes created by the movement of Ice Age glaciers create an environment similar to the classic Riesling-loving regions of Europe, namely Germany and Austria. The Finger Lakes retain summer heat that incidentally warms up cold winter air, making it fall down from the lakes’ steep slopes. When spring comes, the lakes, already cooled by cold winter weather, stave off vine budding until the danger of frost has subsided. The main lakes of the zone, that is those big enough to moderate the climate in this way, are the focal points of prime vineyard areas. They include Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga.
While Riesling has fueled most of the region’s success, today Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc enjoy some attention.