2013 Red Newt Riesling Tango Oaks Vineyard

The 2013 Riesling Tango Oaks Vineyard, from an Alsace clone, comes in with five grams of residual sugar and seven of total acidity, plus 10.6% alcohol. Although the fruit is the same here as with the one under Kelby James Russell's label, this is different, and the fermentations were as well, I'm told. This doesn't seem quite as dry and steely. It is less brooding, less reductive and more expressive. The underlying tension is certainly there, which this demonstrates as it airs and warms. It becomes quite gripping. While this, too, needs food, it does not demand it in quite the same way as its sibling. The KJR, however, will hold up better to food, mostly, but I'd give this the edge overall. There were 840 cases produced.

Faces west on Seneca Lake, area known as the Banana Belt. New winemaker is a Harvard graduate in politics and economics. Red Newt now makes dry and single-vineyard Rieslings. RS 5 g/l. Cool and lively and fresh and pure. Very pure indeed and bone dry and crystalline. Tastes so pure! Cool!! I may be under-scoring this! (JR)

The 2013 Riesling "Tango Oaks Vineyard" is not yet released (set for July 1), but it is at least as good as the 2012–and maybe better. It seems fresher and livelier, for one thing, and I don't think that is merely a symptom of being a year younger. Simply gorgeous in aromatics and intensity of flavor, it may not quite have the concentration of the 2012, but it seems to do everything else better. Rather dry (just 5 grams per liter of residual sugar), its underlying acidity supports the fruit and pounds it into the palate. It's a beauty.