2025 Sweet Riesling

In the tasting room, I often meet visitors who, after being warmly welcomed, admit with a sideways, downcast glance, “I do, but I like sweet wines.”That response always makes me a little sad. It’s unfortunate that sweet wines often carry an undeserved stigma, as though they’re somehow inferior to their dry counterparts. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. A beautifully made sweet wine is a complex and pure expression of the vineyard—capable of aging with grace and evolving in ways that can rival the finest dry wines. Pairing a sweet wine with a creamy cheese on a warm summer afternoon can be an unforgettable epiphany of flavors. So, if you love sweet wines, embrace them! These are some of the most challenging wines we make, and we’re incredibly proud of the balance and expression they carry.

This wine has always intrigued me. Around the world, Riesling is renowned for its ability to reflect its location and terroir with stunning clarity. When I discovered a vineyard growing Riesling practically around the corner, I knew I had to take a shot at making it. Naturally, this wine would find its place in our sweet lineup.

The nearly perfect fruit was harvested early in the morning and immediately whole-cluster pressed to retain its maximum aromatic potential. Fresh grape juice contains natural aromatic compounds that are wonderfully fragrant but also unstable. To preserve these, we allowed the juice to cold-settle in the tank for a period before beginning fermentation, giving these compounds time to bind and stabilize.

Once fermentation commenced, we carefully controlled the temperature, keeping it around 55ºF for a long and slow process. These cooler conditions enhance the wine’s aromatic integrity and ensure it retains its fresh, crisp character. When we hit our target residual sugar—58g/L or around 6º Brix—we chilled the wine again and sterile-filtered it to halt fermentation, preserving all the beautiful grape sugars. The resulting wine is nothing short of amazing: crisp, complex, and perfectly balanced with just the right amount of acidity.

This wine has always intrigued me. Throughout the world Riesling is a varietal that is so expressive of it's location and terroir. When I found out that there was a vineyard growing right around the corner, I knew that I had to take a shot at making it. Of course this would be exclusive to our sweet lineup.