National Business Etiquette Week

June 06, 2010

It is an over cast morning along the shores of Seneca and over the vineyards of Glenora, there are definitely more than a few sprinkles of rain being seen (or felt if you are outside). Our temperature is 58 degrees and the wind is coming from the south southeast at 1 mile per hour. While the weather guru is predicating showers for today the rest of the week looks great!

In the vineyards-the rains of this past week were welcomed by the vineyard team. The rain along with the warm temperatures created a growth spurt which was very evident in a couple of ways. First a very obvious increase in the length of the canes and secondly (probably not as obvious to some) is that the vineyards have a two tone color pattern. This is a result of the color of the leaves of the new growth (light pea green) as compared to the color of the leaves of the older growth (a hunter green). Since it was a bit damp in the vineyards earlier in the week the Knapp vineyard team cleaned and rearranged the farm shop. This is always an interesting project in that after moving some things for number of years one decides enough is enough and it is off to the recycling bin for items that have been moved by not used for 10 years-kind of like cleaning ones attic. However there was a tear shed when the "Purple Monster" (the grape harvester) was wrapped in black plastic and taken out to the used machinery pile-wonder how long it will be before it is recycled? The early season warm temperatures and continued warm weather has resulted in the 2010 growing season currently being 12 to 13 days ahead of a "normal" growing season. If this pattern continues it should give us a great ripening year.

It was another bottling week for both the Glenora and Knapp production teams. The Knapp team bottled Cobblestone Chardonnay while the Glenora team bottled dry Riesling and Lake Series Chardonnay. Both teams have lots of filtering and bottling scheduled for next week. While it seems like 2009 harvest was just wrapped up it is only about 90-100 days before the 2010 harvest will be starting which means that a lot of tanks have to be emptied (bottled) in order to have room for this year's harvest.

This past week, Tuesday and Wednesday, many members of Team Glenora took part in a three hour TIPS program. TIPS is an acronym for Training for Intervention Procedures. The program educates people who work in the beverage alcohol industry how to relate to customers who may have "over-served" themselves (meaning possibly drank too much). It is a great program in that it teaches participants what their responsibilities are, the responsibility of the establishment serving beverage alcohol and also how to deal with "over-served" customers. Everyone who attended is now "TIPS certified" and will have a certificate to show it.

The apiary at Knapp continues to grow!! This past week we added another pair of peafowl (a peahen and a peacock). Then on Saturday morning the editor received a phone call from Executive Chef John who also serves as the Knapp "fowl coordinator telling me that we had a peafowl egg. John wanted to know "what should he do with it?" The editor suggested scrambling or frying - in jest of course. So we are now building a peafowl nursery. You might also ask John to explain the "birds and the bees" when it comes to the fertilization of peafowl eggs-I suspect he has the same theory with respect to ducks and chickens as well! Hopefully not with humans or he will be childless.

Wedding bells rang once again at Glenora on Saturday afternoon-another lucky groom and a beautiful bride! The weather was very cooperative allowing the 155 guests to be able to set outside-no tent-and there were bagpipers

On the road-Both Team Knapp and Team Glenora were at the Farm to Table event held in Seneca Falls on Friday evening, and both were at the Taste of Syracuse Event held on Friday and Saturday. Event Team leader Barb reported a significant increase in sales over last year, and Tasha noted that "orange" is no longer the color of Syracuse-it is now Glenora Chardonnay.

Thought for the week:  Knowledge  -  As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.

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