National No Tillage Week
January 10, 2010
It definitely is winter along the shores of Seneca and in the vineyards of Glenora. Our temperature reading is a chilly 6 degrees. The wind is out of the west southwest at 6 miles per hour creating a wind chill of -5 degrees. And for those who are interested the relative humidity reading of 91% is adding to the creature discomfort. On the brighter side, the last quarter of the Blue Moon is shining overhead.
In the vineyards—not only is Vineyard manager Chris watching the temperature but he and his bride are now in the final stages of a “baby watch”. We thought for a bit on Wednesday/Thursday that we might have our newest vineyard team member joining us—but it was a false alarm. Chris also continues to spread the huge bales of mulch hay, and given that this is National No Tillage Week the project seems very appropriate.
The Glenora Cellar team did their first bottling of 2010 on Tuesday when they bottled Lake Series Riesling. The Knapp Team bottled Pasta Red Reserve on Tuesday and also did a custom bottling project on Thursday.
On Thursday evening we hosted our first “Pasta Night” for the 2010 season. While initially we did not have a guest chef or charity benefit it was brought to our attention that perhaps we could do something that would benefit the young lady who is a member of the Fox Run Vineyards Retail Team who had been involved in a very serious automobile accident just before Christmas.. Through the “power” of e-mail and social networking we had 75 people join us for the dinner and fund raiser—many of whom were members of the industry. We are often asked “given that there seem to be so many wineries, do you work well together”? The answer to that is a resounding yes. Certainly we all, individually, look for visitors in our retail shops and shelf space in wine shops, however when it come to promoting the industry and helping each other in times of need everyone comes together—there have been many examples of that over the years.
On Friday evening several members of Team Glenora attended the 121st Annual Celebration Dinner of the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce. We were especially pleased to be present this year as our friends and business associates “The Schamel Brothers Mike, Guy, and Lee Titus (Lee is not a brother but he has been a member of the Schamel Brother’s Contracting Team almost since its inception) were honored with the Chamber’s 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award. The “Schamel Brothers” and their construction company have been a part of Glenora since we first started building in 1977. They have been involved in every major construction project that we have done—1977 (the original winery), 1981 the structure which houses our vineyard stage, the 1987 winery addition, and the 1999 Inn and restaurant construction. Along the way they have also “bailed us out” with water supply issues, supplying a truck at harvest for pumice removal and an sundry of other construction issues that seem to pop up on occasion. The award was presented by our own Scott Welliver, Glenora partner, and a long time friend of the Schamels. Scott may have missed his calling – he is a great stand up master of ceremonies.
Today the Knapp Team will be hosting their annual Limo/Bus Drivers Appreciation Day event. This event which is held annually honors and thanks the drivers who bring us customer throughout the year. We are very appreciative of the fact that they suggest and include a visit to Knapp as a part of the itinerary for their guests.
Since it is a slow news week—some notes from the 10 January 1999 edition of The Glenora Gazette: Another week of battling the weather, we were only able to pour concrete (Inn construction) on two days. On Tuesday our architect made his first visit to the site with almost final design plans for the restaurant and Inn rooms (remember we opened in June of that year). Other projects included work a special label for our Millennium Sparking Wine and work on our newest website – 2000Champagne, that project is being directed by Mikey Merlot, aka—Mike Linehan. Steve was a the Cornell vinificiation lab in Geneva on Tuesday tasting wines made from newly developed grape varieties (it was hoped at that time that these varieties would be given names that would have broad consumer appeal—it did not happen). And the question of the week for 10 January 1999 was “if you were in the vineyard practicing epamprage, what would you be doing? A bottle of Cabernet was the prize for the first correct answer.
Thought for the week: Talking/Eloquence - Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
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