Jazz Greats at Glenora—The Sax Pack

July 19, 2009

Another cool morning along the shores of Seneca and over the vineyards of Glenora (where is summer?). Our temperature is 59 degrees with the winds out of the west southwest at 5 miles per hour and bright skies. The weather guru is predicting a temperature of 72 degrees and a 30% chance of showers this afternoon at concert time—good to go!!

Vineyard Report—There are not a lot of changes with our Knapp vineyards. We are seeing some growth of lateral shoots which is good and the occasional cluster that is still hanging on is doing well—still not enough to warrant harvesting. Our extension folks (Cornell) are telling us that even with the rain and cooler temperatures most of the grape varieties are at a normal stage of development for this time of year. We will soon start doing cluster counts and weights to get an estimate of the size (tons) of this year’s crop. As well some of the growers are starting hedging and leaf pulling (done to help with better spray coverage and fruit ripening).

In the cellar—It was a bottling week for both Team Glenora and Team Knapp. In addition to doing some custom bottling on Wednesday and Thursday at Glenora, the cellar team also did a custom disgorging project on Tuesday. The Knapp Team bottled Kat Knapp on Wednesday and Limecello and Lemoncello on Friday. Both of the Production Teams helped the Festival Team move wine and supplies to the Finger Lakes Wine Festival being held at “The Glen” this weekend. It really was quite a show at noon on Thursday as the two large Ryder trucks, two pick-ups, and one van departed from Glenora and Knapp—shades of Barnum & Bailey.

It was meeting week for the editor. On Monday it was a meeting of the Finger Lakes Wine Alliance, an organization that represents all of the wineries in the Finger Lakes, with its sole mission being one of “branding the Finger Lakes as a recognized wine region”. Part of Monday’s meeting revolved around the definition of what makes the Finger Lakes Wine region unique. All agree it is the climate (cool climate viticulture) however it seems that term is not well defined so the Alliance will be working on defining cool climate viticulture as it applies to the Finger Lakes Region. Tuesday was a meeting of the Seneca Lake Wine trail with a fair amount of discussion regarding “registering marks” and trademarks”. This discussion was prompted by the use (sometimes inappropriately or incorrectly) of some of the trails events and nomenclature. It was agreed that the trail would ask some trademark folks to make a presentation at an upcoming meeting.

On the road—The Festival Team returned last Sunday evening from the Renaissance Festival smiling but wet. Greg once again was on the road working the Albany, Syracuse, and southern tier markets—including a tasting at the Hill Top in Elmira on Wednesday evening. Yesterday we conducted tastings at Empire Wine and Spirits, Albany, and at GCP in Horseheads.

We have two new members (sort of) of the maintenance team—Bridget and Larry as they have been on a painting spree at our booth at the windmill—a long overdue spruce up!!

As noted earlier we (Glenora and Knapp) are at this weekend’s Finger Lakes Wine Festival at Watkins Glen International. This year marks the 13^th year of the event at the Glen however both Glenora and Knapp can lay claim to having attended 15 of the Festivals as we participated in the early years when it was organized by Knapp Vineyards and held at the Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls—actually we (Glenora) were an investor as well. Festival Coordinator Barb reported good sales at the Friday evening toga event (above previous years) and yesterday’s sales were great as well—bring on Brinks!!. It takes a ton of work with lots of help by the Glenora and Knapp Teams as well as our volunteer team, to move hundreds of case of wine to the event, set up the booths, keep smiling will standing in one spot for 7 hours and then to take it all apart on Sunday evening. It is all appreciated.

And to add to this weekend’s excitement a wine dinner last evening at Knapp. Themed “The Caribbean Breeze Wine Dinner” Chef John and his team prepared a five course dinner that was paired with wines from Knapp, Glenora and Zugibe vineyards. It was a spectacular meal that very much lived up to the Caribbean theme—there were even tiki torches lighting the dining area.

Today is, we believe (the editor needs to do some research), the 29^th year that we present Jazz Greats at Glenora on our vineyard stage—in August of 1981 it was Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd—today, July 19 2009 it is the Sax Pack.

Thought for the week:  Communication  -  Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication by insincere conversation rather than by silence.

« Back