Our First Bottling Day: The 2025 Dry Riesling

This weekend marked a big first for Navinnus Forty Two Cellars: Our 2025 Dry Riesling has officially made its way from tank to bottle!

We knew from the beginning that we wanted to be hands-on with the process, and bottling day was definitely that. There were bottles to fill, corks to insert, boxes to assemble, cases to pack, and plenty of moving parts to keep track of.

Fortunately, we had help.

Mike and Jenny; Mike and Nancy

Our friends Jenny and Mike and Nancy and Mike joined us for the day and jumped right in.

Everyone had a job, and by the end of the day, we had cases of Riesling packed and ready for the next step.

It wasn't entirely smooth sailing. Toward the end of bottling, a filter started leaking and we lost a few bottles' worth of wine. We're quickly learning that things don't always go exactly according to plan when you're making wine. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, fix the problem, and keep going. It's all part of the process.

Fortunately, most of the Riesling made it safely into bottles, and having friends there made our first bottling even more memorable.

And then there was this bottle:

It’s the very first bottle of Navinnus Forty Two Cellars 2025 Dry Riesling. After months of watching the wine develop, tasting it along the way, making decisions, and waiting, holding that first finished bottle was a pretty good feeling.

Of course, we had to taste (and celebrate!) the results.

Our Riesling is bottled, but our first vintage isn't quite finished yet. Our 2025 Dry Rosé of Cabernet Franc is up next and will be bottled later this week.

One wine down. One to go. And even better yet, our wines are getting very close to being ready to share!

To learn more about the origins of our wine labels, make sure to check out this post.

Thanks for joining us on this journey! Before you leave, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog and also check out our Facebook group, Finger Lakes Food and Wine Adventures.

Cheers from the lake!
—Niki