Lucas Vineyards 2008 Dry Riesling

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief

As Evan hinted in his post last week, he'll be investigating the challenges involved in making truly exceptional dry rieslings. The story idea grew out of some conversations he and I have had about some of the "acid water" dry rieslings we've both tasted of late -- meaning wines that have the lively acidity that we both look for, but not much else.

More on that soon though. Today, I wanted to review this Lucas Vineyards 2008 Dry Riesling ($14) a dry Finger Lakes riesling that sucessfully dodges the pitfalls of dry riesling and delivers solid balance of fruit, sugar and acidity.

Green apple aromas dominate the nose, but there is some lime here too, with a bit of that wet river rock that I like in many Finger Lakes rieslings. As it warms, a subtle citrus blossom note emerges a bit as well.

The palate shows good-not-great balance, with linear lime, apricot and green apple flavors -- again with just a little of that rocky minerality -- framed by citrusy acidity.

The finish is medium-long and ends with a citrus zest-meets-stone note.

Producer: Lucas Vineyards
AVA: Finger Lakes
Residual Sugar: 1%
ABV: 11.5%
Production: 600 cases
Price: $14*
Rating:  (3 out of 5 | Recommended)

(Ratings Guide)

Comments

[R. Olsen-Harbich]

Lenn - it also seems like a very good value at $14. I think more needs to be made of the price/quality ratio of NY wines especially when they are priced so competitively like this one. Its not that easy to find a decent German Riesling today for $14.

[Adam Ehmer]

A parent of a Lucas employee dropped this wine off with me this weekend. Its an enjoyable Riesling and a great deal for the $14 pricetag.

I agree with most of your notes, I thought the aromas were fairly delicate, definitely not jumping out of the glass, which made it hard to determine it was a riesling on the nose (I verified by blind tasting a couple of people and they had this difficulty too). Interestingly, the blind tasters detected toast/oak notes that I didn't pick up, which made me wonder the origin of those aromas (i.e. I'm assuming it was not barrel aged, so I wonder what winemaking method would produce those aromas; maybe it was psychosomatic!).

The Riesling-ness of the wine showed much more on the palate, though the acidity wasn't as killer as would have expected from a dry Riesling. Again, the blind tasters and I thought we detected a smidge of residual sugar, so I'd be interested to know if this is slightly off dry (5g/L or so?). The finish of the wine was not long or complex, but again, for $14 this is a nicely drinking dry Riesling.