Forge Cellars Dry Riesling 2023

Forget what you think you know about New York wine. If you’re still picturing the cloying grape juice of decades past, the 2023 Forge Cellars “Classique” is here to stage a polite but firm intervention.

Born from a partnership between Louis Barruol (of Gigondas fame) and Rick Rainey, Forge has spent the last decade proving that the shale-covered slopes of Seneca Lake are to Riesling what the Côte d’Or is to Chardonnay. This isn’t just a “good for the region” wine; it’s a world-class bottle that happens to be grown in our own backyard.

The 2023 vintage is a nervous, high-wire act of a wine. It’s bone dry and fermented with indigenous yeasts in neutral oak—a technique that rounds out the variety’s sharp edges without sacrificing its electric core.