The 29th Day of National Pomegranate Month
November 29, 2009
The skies are almost clear this morning as we await the arrival of the sun over the vineyards of Glenora and along the shores of Seneca. The temperature is 33 degrees and the wind is out of the south southwest at 2 miles per hour. The weather guru is telling us that it is going to be another nice week in wine country—temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s during the day with perhaps an occasional flake of snow.
In the vineyards—this past week some time was spent dong trellis work as well as stalking the four legged grape and grape vine eaters (deer). Some of them should be quite tasty as they have been marinating themselves with (eating) Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Sangiovese. They should taste almost as good as the turkey’s that were harvested-same diet.
In the cellar—the Knapp team bottled Superstition and Pasta Red on Tuesday. The Glenora Team brought in some of the Concord, on Monday; they will be filtering and cold stabilizing before sending it on to Knapp to become Superstition. Both teams spent time filtering the some of the 2009 wines as well.
At Knapp Cellar Master Rich and Vineyard Manager Chris “rewired” the chicken coop this past Monday. The project consisted of replacing the wire over the outside run of the coop. As soon as that was completed “Bonnie”, our peahen, was moved into the coop for the winter. We expect to have a new “Clyde”, a peacock, arriving in the next week or so to keep Bonnie company over the winter—they will both be joined by Lucky, the duck. We enjoy having the animals as they provide lots of entertainment for our guests and their children. We are giving consideration to adding either miniature sheep or goats to our menagerie next year.
Awards—we recently received a package wine medals from the American Wine Society (AWS) for the wines that Glenora and Knapp entered in the Wine Society’s commercial wine completion. Of the 44 medals awarded to New York State wineries for their entries Glenora and Knapp accounted for 16 of those medals (36%)—including one of the three gold medals—for the Knapp 2008 Seyval Blanc. From the editor’s perspective this is one of the more difficult competitions that we enter as the judges are AWS members from across the US and most are experienced and trained judges. In order to judge each must past a rigorous program (a 2-3 year training program, I believe) in order to be certified as an AWS judge. Congratulation to the Glenora and Knapp winemaking teams—great job!!
Windmill Larry is on the homestretch as he only has two more weekends at “The Mill”. Our sales have been very good this year at the mill under Larry’s stewardship. While the Windmill is exciting and brings lots of visitors to the region it does get a bit old for the vendors by year’s end, especially when you hear; “it is too early to taste wine” (usually stated between 8-11 AM) to which we respond it almost 2 PM in London, but the best one is “do you have some wine that doesn’t taste like wine”!
On the road—yesterday was a busy day for Team Knapp and Glenora as we had a in-store tasting at Park Manor in Endwell, participated at the “Sip & Savor Event” that was held at Sarrisins in Penn Yan, and Barb represented us at the Wine & Chocolate Festival that was held at the fairgrounds (in a building actually) in Syracuse. A new twist there as the festival allowed beer and martini sales as well—beer and chocolate?????????????????????
Chef Orlando and the Kitchen and Restaurant teams hosted another spectacular Thanksgiving dinner. There were lots of great comments with regards to food and ambience. As well Ashley and Larry swung open the doors to the Glenora retail shop selling over $1,000 worth of wine to our Thanksgiving visitors—all done in a 5 hour period. Thanks to everyone!!
This coming Wednesday, December 2nd will be the first full moon of the month; then again on December 31st there will be another. According to the folks who study these things most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (on average about every 2.7154 years, if you counting), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is called a "blue moon. Enjoy it, because if everything goes according to schedule it will be mid 2012 before we see another!!
Thought for the week: The Abstract - Nothing is abstract. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
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