Fourth of July Weekend—US Grand Prix Weekend
July 05, 2009
With clear skies (finally) it is a chilly morning (for July) along the shores of Seneca and in the vineyards of Glenora. Our temperature reading is 54 degrees and the wind is out of the west southwest at 5 miles per hour. It does look the beginning of a summer morning.
Vineyard report—our analysis done on our Knapp vineyards, which was made last week, has been confirmed this week—and that is the crop at Knapp has been lost this year because of the hail damage (well it actually it is not lost, it is on the ground, beaten off the vines by the hail). We have had representatives from Cornel Cooperative Extension and the Farm Service Agency looking at the vineyards—the general consensus is to leave the vines alone and give them minimal protective spray coverage (at least our spray material bills will be lower this year). We are noting that the vines are really trying to rally as those that still have some foliage are beginning to produce lateral buds on the injured canes. While this growth will not produce fruit this year is should help the vine store nutrients for balance of this year as well as provide some fruiting buds for 2010.
In the cellar—At Glenora a fair amount of tank work (filtering) while at Knapp it was a big bottling of Superstition both in the 750 ml and 1.5 L sizes. The Glenora crew continued to label Port and is preparing to label another run of the Eldridge Park Carousel Series wines. These wines are being used as part of a fund raiser for the carousel at Eldridge Park in Elmira, NY. They were released on July 1 and we already have “refill orders”.
Another new release on July 1, at Glenora, was our Block 4 Iced Vidal Wine. The grapes for this wine were selected from the Block 4 Vidal vineyard at Knapp. They were hand harvested and then slowly cooled to the point of being frozen after which the Glenora Production Team carefully pressed them which resulted in a limited amount of some intense and very sweet juice from which the “Iced Wine” was produced. The Ice Wine that is being produced at Knapp is now in its final stages of fermentation and should be ready to make its debut by September 1.
On the road—the Festival Team is taking a huge breath coming off a month of non-stop events (many of which were wet). July will be a bit slower with the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen and the Harbor Fest in Oswego being the major festivals for the month. Greg continues his ventures around the state. This week his travels ranged from Utica, to Binghamton, to Buffalo and lots of points in between. Part of the week included tastings at Premier (Thursday) and Sycamore Gardens (Friday). Greg also tells us that our Lake Series Riesling program is being well accepted by the wine shops.
So far the 4th of July weekend seems to one of lots of visitors and lots of sales in our retail shops—the first two days show a 17% increase in sales. Hopefully that trend will continue for the balance of 2009. A quick analysis of the retail sales numbers for the first 6 months show a 15% increase in visitors and an 8% increase in sales. Certainly there are lots of factors that impact these numbers –remember gas prices were around $4.00/gallon at this time last year.
The Inn Team is having a busy weekend as well but it is only a warm up for next weekend when we have three weddings at the Inn and are catering another offsite.
The Off Site Tasting/Special Event team is at the IRL races this weekend. Barb C. and her family reported in early this AM with some good sales numbers as well—they will be back at the track today.
More congratulations—this time to Monica Crosby (retail) and Margaret McAdams (housekeeping) who both were on the Finger Lakes Community College’s Dean List for the Spring semester; and also to James Willson (retail) who was awarded the 2009 Boys Coaches Trophy at the Penn Yan Academy’s annual sports banquet.
Thought for the Week: Happiness - While at times it is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
« Back