100% Riesling

Food pairings: Shellfish, raw oysters, grilled fish, sushi, goat cheese, salads with vinaigrette and grilled citrus-marinated chicken.

Winemaking: Dry Riesling is Apollo's Praise's flagship wine, an opulent style shaped by the vineyard's sandstone and ripe fruit, which the cellar work balances with structure. The crushed grapes soaked on their skins for three to five days before pressing, to draw every bit of ripeness and texture from the whole berry. The juice fermented in a mix of neutral barriques and small stainless steel tanks, using both wild and selected yeasts to build layers of structure. Fermentations ran two to three months, and the wine rested on its lees until February 2026 before it was racked, pad filtered and bottled. It is enjoyable right away but built to age.

Vineyards and terroir: A true "Lahoma Vineyard" wine, it comes from the producer's three favorite hills for dry Riesling on the farm, on the west side of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes. It is based mainly on the Long Rows, a unique east-west planting whose rows drain cold air straight down the slope and keep the fruit bright later into harvest. Small picks from the Pentecostal Block and The Knoll add palate weight and depth. Sandstone beneath the site gives the wine its richness. The estate is farmed with sustainable practices.

Family and history: Apollo's Praise is the winery of Kelby James Russell and Julia Hoyle, who met at Fox Run on Seneca Lake and worked their way from the tasting room into the cellar, going on to lead winemaking at Red Newt Cellars and Hosmer Winery respectively. At Red Newt, Kelby made acclaimed Rieslings from Lahoma Vineyard for a decade, and in 2023 the couple bought the vineyard from grower Ken Fulkerson and founded Apollo's Praise. The name comes from "Glorious Apollo," the song Kelby performed with the Harvard Glee Club as an undergraduate.

In the pictures: A glass of wine in the vineyard; vine rows at sunset; and autumn at Lahoma Vineyard (photos courtesy of Apollo's Praise and Skurnik Wines).