National Barbeque Month
May 16, 2010
It is a mostly cloudy morning along the shores of Seneca and over the vineyards of Glenora. Our temperature is 48 degrees and the wind is out of the west at one mile per hour. The weather gurus are predicting warmer weather for the upcoming week, although there is a chance of showers midweek.
In the Vineyards: Once again this past week most of the growers in Finger Lakes Wine Country dodged the frost bullet—but in many cases in was extremely close. At Knapp, we did see some bud damage on what we call suckers, buds at the base of the vine, but that really should not have any significant economic consequence. We did talk with one local grower who indicated that he had lost about 60 tons of grapes on some of his vineyards located on the higher elevation sites. At Knapp we are beginning to see more impact from last June’s hail storm as many of the canes/buds are very slow in developing. As we thought last year, it most likely is going to take least two years to overcome the damage of the hail storm.
The Production Teams at both Glenora and Knapp had a busy bottling week. Glenora bottled Niagara, both 750’s and 1.5’s, along with Peach Passion at Pleasant Valley. The Knapp Team bottled Curiosity on Tuesday and Loganberry on Thursday.
Riesling month is in full swing in Finger Lakes Wine Country. Almost every winery has some sort of a special event taking place, most on a daily basis. Since the visitor season has not kicked into high gear, other than bus loads of graduating college students who in some cases seem to have reverted back (their actions) to a pre-kindergarten level, it is a great time to visit and enjoy the wines without having encounter the larger crowds.
On the road: Once again this week the Glenora and Knapp sales teams were criss-crossing the highways and byways of upstate New York. The in store tasting team was in Auburn at Peppers Discount Liquor on Friday afternoon. On Saturday they were at Caputi’s in Amherst and also at Georgetown Wine and Spirits in Fairport. The festival team was at Spring into Summer event that was held on Friday and Saturday—not sure where that one as held but do know that Barb C and Ed were there pouring “our finest”—however the attendance is light. Bridget and the Editor attended a Seneca Lake Wine Trail meeting at King’s Garden on Tuesday and the editor attended at Cayuga Lake Wine Trail meeting on Wednesday. An editorial comment—it seems that at both meetings more time was spend discussing individual wineries policies (actions) than on marketing and promoting the trails—the success of the trails to this point has been their working together to promote the wineries and wines along the trail—getting into dictating or strongly suggesting policy to individual wineries could be a dangerous thing. On Friday evening the editor attended an event at the Harbor Hotel that was hosted by the new Wine Center in Ithaca. The center plans to open in July and the event was held to give Finger Lakes wineries and businesses an opportunity to learn more about the center and as well to learn about ways that they can participate at the center.
Clyde 2/also (the Knapp Peacock) captured!! As a result of a mention of the wandering Peacock (Clyde) and the bounty offered we received an e-mail from Brendan Zugibe offering to give us information on Clyde’s where abouts—but only after the reward was dropped off at a clandestine location at 2 AM—it was done and the information was received. So early on Tuesday morning the roundup team—Barb C, Tasha, and Doc headed out and soon located Clyde (the easy part). After an hour of chasing Clyde was “bagged” (caught and placed in a laundry bag) and returned back to his pen and mate “Bonnie” who insisted that “his wings be clipped”—it was done, so now Clyde 2/also can only fly a short distance and if he leaves Knapp again it will be on foot, not by wing!
The weekend wedding bells rang again at Glenora yesterday afternoon—beautiful day, beautiful bride!! This will be a weekly occurrence (sometimes more than once) between now and the end of October, the one exception being NASCAR weekend (August 8th).
If you are a Pasta Nite fan mark your calendar for this coming Thursday, May 20th, as it will be the last one of the season. Max Neal and the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce will be flipping the pans!
Also if you like lilacs and champagne Team Glenora will be at the Lilac and Bubbles Event being held at the Lilac Festival this coming Tuesday in Rochester. The weather forecast looks good for the event, we can remember years when we were pouring wine during snow squall at the festival.
Thought for the Week: Courage - "It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare”—Mark Twain
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