Cayuga
Seneca Lake, New York
estate vineyard
shale, limestone, sandstone
Organic
The grapes were harvested early in the season for maximum acid retention. Grapes were pressed gently in a horizontal press. The juice was fermented naturally with a pied de cuvée (yeast starter) that was started in the vineyard to ensure that true vineyard yeasts drove the fermentation. Wine was bottled on October 1 to finish ferment under crown cap and to preserve natural carbonation. No sulfites were added at bottling.
drink now
9.5%
Delicate-yet-raw perfume of grapefruit rind, white peach, honeysuckle and hay. The fizz is vigorous, and while it doesn't last long, it's replaced by a pithy, lemony acidity that keeps things bouncy and mouth-watering. Walks a confident line between “clean” and wild.
Fried Chicken, Fresh Seafood, Stinky Cheese, Aperitif
Ben Riccardi has established himself as something of a specialist in pet nat wines, natural sparkling wines bottled during the fermentation process. Osmote began in 2014 as a tenant winery within a bigger facility. In 2020, we took the plunge and moved to our own facility in Ovid, NY. A former trucking garage, the space has been converted to a fully functioning winery full of tanks, wine presses, and barrels. During bottling season, we drive in our own bottling trailer and bottle on site.
The winery continues to develop and now serves a dual function of community building while it hosts smaller tenant wineries and helps other young families to foster their brands. Believing it better to trust nature and the process, Ben takes a relaxed approach in the winery. It’s not laziness or a recklessly cavalier attitude towards the craft, but instead Ben’s conviction in the potential of the Finger Lakes terroir. He has worked around the globe in France, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and California, collecting insights abroad, all to understand the unique greatness of these New York Finger Lakes.
The Osmote family is Ben, Brittnie and Mia, plus all the friends and family who have helped us along the way. Ben Riccardi is both winemaker and business manager. Born in the Finger Lakes, he now lives on the southern end of Seneca Lake. His work experiences include notably Willams Selyem in California, Craggy Range in New Zealand, and City Winery New York in Manhattan.
Ben has a technical winemaking degree from Cornell University and understands the science of wine, but the raw material here begs for patience, not a technocratic winemaker. He seeks a gentler touch then, in order to develop texture alongside the bright acids of these light, ethereal wines.
Cayuga White is a French-American hybrid developed by Cornell University in the 1940s and is grown almost exclusively within the Finger Lakes region. These vines are trained on a high wire umbrella trellis where shoots are left to grow up from the cane then fall back down towards the middle of the row. The combination of grape variety and trellis style on well drained soils allow for sustainable viticulture with a minimum of vineyard sprays. Cayuga is a mid-season ripening grape. With a shorter ripening, it does not develop high sugar content, which makes it an excellent grape for producing lower alcohol wines. This one has a 9.5% abv, a perfect wine for cheating in Dry January or to enjoy on a weekend afternoon, with work in the rearview mirror. Because of its high acidity, it often has a small dose of residual sugar–in this case it is 2 grams per liter (2 g/l), which is a medium-off dry.