Apollo’s Praise

About

Owners & winemakers: Kelby James Russell & Julia Rose Hoyle
Vineyards: Lahoma Vineyard, a 55-acre estate-owned vineyard on the western side of Seneca Lake, plus one site of purchased fruit
Vineyard management: Sustainable, no herbicide use as of 2024
Soils: Sandstone
Grapes grown: Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Gruner Veltliner, Chardonnay, Scheurebe
Annual production: 50,000 bottles

Quick facts:

• Kelby and Julia had both been making wine in the Finger Lakes for fifteen years when they had the opportunity to purchase Lahoma Vineyard in 2023.
• The winery is deeply tied to Kelby and Julia’s passion for art and music: the name “Apollo’s Praise” comes from a song lyric; the Art Nouveau-style labels were designed by artist Cristi López, who also painted a mural at the winery; and each wine gets a “song pairing” suggestion rather than a food pairing.
• “Our goal in winemaking is a bit like salt in food: we don’t want it to be noticeable. We are both proponents of celebrating what humans can create with wine, we are winemakers because we want to be part of the process, but we aim to guide the wines towards what we think is their true-self without using techniques that you can obviously recognize.” – Kelby Russell

Kelby and Julia jokingly describe Apollo’s Praise as the “oldest new winery” in the Finger Lakes. The 2023 vintage was the first release; however, the history of both the winemakers and the vineyard stretches back much further. Both Kelby and Julia have been making wine in the Finger Lakes for fifteen years, Kelby at Red Newt Cellars and Julia at Hosmer Winery.

The story of Apollo’s Praise is really the story of Lahoma Vineyard. Lahoma is a 55-acre site on the western side of Seneca Lake, composed of four rolling hills. “We are able to plant the crowns of these hills, leaving the low spots between for water and cold air drainage, but as a result we get four very different wine profiles,” Kelby explains. The most famous hill, The Knoll, is the source for their single block Riesling bottling, as well as some Grüner Veltliner and Chardonnay.

Uniquely, the soil in Lahoma Vineyard is predominantly sandstone, which is uncommon in the Finger Lakes.”Walking through the vineyard you see large red rocks or quartz coming up out of the ground everywhere: my collection of cool rocks is ever expanding,” Kelby tells us. “From a viticulture standpoint we love this soil, as excess moisture is the biggest struggle of growing grapes in the Finger Lakes; sandstone does a phenomenal job of helping drain that away. From a winemaking standpoint we’re also enamored with the character it lends to the wines: Rieslings on sandstone have a real opulence and ripe generosity that stands out in a line-up. We love to showcase that in our wines.”

Kelby began working with the Lahoma Vineyard site back in 2012–one of its first fruit-bearing vintages–making dry Rieslings for Red Newt Cellars that garnered international attention, including from Jancis Robinson, who remains one of the couple’s biggest supporters. Kelby and Julia had the opportunity to purchase the vineyard in 2023, “by complete surprise,” Kelby admits. “There was no warning of this, but [Ken Fulkerson, the grower and owner] had apparently decided years before that he wanted to retire and had decided Julia and I were the people who could best take Lahoma to ‘the next level,’ as Ken would put it. Of all the wineries he sold fruit to, I was the only winemaker who was always helping work at the vineyard and bringing industry visitors by. It is why, in retrospect, he planted several grapes to my specification over the years, so we would have exactly what we wanted to work with when we took it over. Would have been nice if he ever told us that plan – hah! – but in the end I hope we are living up to the potential and passion he saw in us.”

The initial plan was to simply start selling the fruit while working their day jobs, but nature had other ideas: “One month after closing, on May 18th 2023, we had the first spring frost in over 50 years and lost half the crop in the blink of an eye,” Kelby explains. “In order to save the farm we realized we were going to have to start a winery right away to try and show a new business plan.” Fortunately, the first vintage was a success, and Apollo’s Praise has continued to grow from there. They’re still selling the majority of the fruit from the 55-acre site to other growers, but have the ability to easily scale up as their own needs grow.

In the cellar, Kelby and Julia work independently, each making about half of the wines in their own distinctive styles. Both, however, are invested in the key technique of cold-soaking the fruit, which Kelby pioneered with his first vintage of The Knoll in 2013, while at Red Newt Cellars. “The idea of crushing Riesling grapes and letting them macerate for a few days was unheard of at the time,” he explains. “But I was in pursuit of a style of Finger Lakes Riesling that I hadn’t seen up to that point: one that went for weight, structure, and power. As it turns out, there seems to be a synergy between that technique and Lahoma fruit, and it has been a part of the repertoire ever since. The result are slightly more aromatic wines compared to direct-to-press handlings, but in particular we get incredible palate weight and texture from this process that we think best express Lahoma.” Otherwise, the goal is for winemaking that’s not noticeable as winemaking: spontaneous fermentation or carefully selected yeasts, vinification in steel tanks or neutral barrels, no fining for the whites, and no fining or filtration for the reds.