National Safe Boating Week
May 23, 2010
After a few late night, early morning showers we have a beautiful late Spring morning in the making along the shores of Seneca and in the vineyards of Glenora—a beautiful sunrise!! Our temperature is 60 degrees and the wind is out of the south southeast at 3 miles per hour. The weather guru’s are predicting great weather for the upcoming week with daily highs in the low to mid 80’s and lot of sun—perhaps a few showers towards the end of the week—great weather for the grapes!
In the vineyards: The vineyard team spent a good portion of this past week suckering (removing the unwanted shoots from the base of the vine) and doing as needed re-tying of the vines to the trellis. Again this week vineyard manager Chris applied more protective sprays to the vines. Early in the week we finished planting the last of the replacement vines. Replacement vines are young vines, usually two years old, that are planted in established vineyards “to replace” vines that have either have died or been attacked by “tractor blight”. For those not familiar “tractor blight” occurs when the vine is encounters (hit by) a tractor, mower, or other piece of equipment—it (tractor blight) is usually instantly fatal. The frost bullet—while we thought we had dodged it there does seem to be a bit more damage than we originally had anticipated. Most of the damage seems to have occurred at the base of the vines, which is not significant in terms of potential crop loss. However we are also seeing some bud damage on some of the younger vines which will have an impact (reduce) this year’s crop.
The production teams were bottling again this week with the Knapp team bottling Kat Knapp and the Glenora Team bottling 2008 Cabernet Franc and 2008 Syrah. As well there was lots of wine movement as the teams prepare for the next bottling round.
This past Tuesday we were pleased to host a meeting of the managers/owners of the Outback Steak houses from across New York State. In addition to hold their meeting here they tasted several of Knapp, Glenora and Palmer Vineyards wines during lunch. Later in the day winemaker Steve gave them a cellar tour and the opportunity to taste more of our wines. Our thanks to our distributor, Empire North, for their support with the meeting and tasting, Tom O’Dea of Palmer Vineyards, Long Island for suggesting the idea for the meeting at Glenora, and to the Glenora team who made the meeting, meals, and tastings special. The Outback folks have a real interest in carrying New York wines—that interest can be fueled by everyone asking for a glass, or bottle, of New York wine when you visit their restaurants.
There has been a fair amount of conversation in the social media networks with regards to the recent Taste Camp East 2010 event that was held in the Finger Lakes Wine County two weeks ago. One of the major talking/discussion topics (a theme expressed by several of the attendees) was “the gap in quality (wine) between the top producers and the bottom tier”. One writer even referred to some of the wines as “dreck”. Much to the credit of those making comments they were not critical of wines made from native American or French American grapes, nor were they critical of sweeter wines, which is something many wine writers do apparently using the logic “that if the wine in not made from vinifera grapes it is not suitable to drink”. Another point, that was made in these discussions, was that “the gap” as one writer stated “I am not if there is another wine region in the world with a gap so obvious”. While observations like these are not something we (the industry) like to hear we must give them attention. We have seen significant growth (wineries) in the Finger Lakes region in the last 35 years (8-10 wineries in the mid 70’s to 125—probably more, today). It would appear, at least according to many of those attending Taste Camp, that we need focus on improving the quality of some of the wines produced and not always measuring the success of the region by the number new wineries being established.
It is another busy weekend at Glenora and Knapp. Glenora hosted another wedding which also included a visit by Elvis (an impersonator). As part of Riesling month the Knapp Team offered a vertical tasting of Knapp and Glenora Rieslings with food pairings on Friday evening. On Saturday evening it was another of the monthly wine dinners at Knapp—the theme was “Dinner of the Ocean Blue”. Once again Chef John and his team, along with the culinary artists from Zugibe Vineyards (Fred and Brendan) presented a great meal that was paired with wines from Glenora, Knapp and Zugibe vineyards—the table decorations were very unique.
Once again—hats off to the maintenance team—Joel, Jamie and Norm!! Not only do they keep the visible parts of Glenora (plants, buildings, lawns, etc) in great shape but the behind the scenes work (usually emergencies like no electric, malfunctioning water pumps, plugged bathrooms, etc) are handled equally as well—THANKS GUYS!!
Thought for the week: Mediocrity –Talent - Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
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