Philly winery owner says blending is one of its strengths, and has the wines to prove it
A majority of Pray Tell's wines are blends, including a rosé made from Pinot Noir and Riesling grapes that was released several weeks ago.
Pray Tell wines, which straddles the Olde Kensington and Fishtown neighborhoods in Philadelphia, has made available two new releases.
One is a 2024 Chardonnay, with the grapes sourced from a vineyard in Nottingham, Chester County.
“While we’ve historically worked with Burgundian clones of the variety, this is an Alsatian clone (Colmar) cultivated for cold winters with natural retention of acidity,” Pray Tell founder and winemaker Tom Caruso said in an email. The wine was scheduled to be released this weekend. “We decided to take a portrait of purity with our first vintage of Pennsylvania grown Chardonnay by moving only the free-run (non-pressed) juice to a single 500mL neutral French oak barrel. [It’s] aged for 18 months sur lie (with lees involved for creamier texture) before being bottled without any fining or filtration. Nothing added and nothing taken away. It is a wine that I feel shows how beautiful a fit Chardonnay can be in PA. We’re really excited to go on that journey here, with an emphasis on the variety going forward.”
Caruso is a Philly native who took a roundabout route to California and Oregon, where his interest in making wine turned into a career. He and Sydney Adams, his partner in the venture and assistant winemaker, brought the business back to his hometown (with the help of five tractor-trailers) two years ago.
The tasting room is accessible off a loading dock that’s used by the winery and the market next door. There’s plenty of parking off that loading dock, located in the 1600 block of North Hancock Street, near the intersection with Turner Street. The tasting room is open 3 to 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and also for private events.
The 2024 Chardonnay’s debut took place two weeks after a Pennsylvania blend of Pinot Noir and Riesling was released. It’s called Fruit Snacks, but there’s nothing sweet about it.
Caruso agreed that the blend of Pinot Noir and Riesling is not one you see very often.
“We are certainly no strangers to blending red and white grape varieties in our cellar. That journey started with admiration for Cote-Rotie years ago, where Syrah and Viognier are often co-fermented to achieve a balance in aromatic lift and concentration on the palate,” he said. “We’ve been doing some type of red+white combination since 2020, often blending things like Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, Syrah and Viognier, etc. I feel our greatest strength as a winery is at the blending table. We love to challenge conventional norms in pursuit of what is the best wine that we can possibly make. Our Fruit Snacks Red Blend, which you tasted during your recent visit, has Cab Franc/Pinot Noir/Merlot/Riesling together. This rosé in particular is packed with fresh fruit and liveliness. We wanted to make something that leapt out of the glass and went down as quickly as you pull the cork out!”
Another blend with a name that suggests sweet but quite the opposite is the Pray Tell https://vinoshipper.com/catalog/Pennsylvania-Wines/pray_tell/pray_tell_orange_popsicle_750ml_166367
Selling for $30, it’s a bicoastal skin-contact blend of equal parts Oregon-grown Albariño and Pennsylvania-grown Chardonnay, according to Caruso.
“That is a wine that has become a bit of a calling card for us as we’ve made it every year since 2019. It has ranged from skin contact Pinot Gris to Albarino + Chardonnay blends, to a new Vidal/Chardonnay/other whites mix, Caruso said.
He added: “We achieve that color through skin contact by always having a white grape variety involved in the blend with slightly orange pigmentation to its skins [as opposed to the more neon green color whites we tend to see in other white varieties]. We watch the maceration period fastidiously, ensuring color and flavor pickup without over extracting tannins. Many an orange wine can push into the overtly tannic territory and have disjointed structure, so we pursue as much balance as possible. The beauty of not adding any commercial strands of yeast in our cellar is that our fermentations always tend to stay naturally cooler, ensuring a more gentle extraction.”
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