IRL Race at WGI / Fouth of July Weekend
July 04, 2010
It is a beautiful Fourth of July morning in the vineyards of Glenora and along the shores of Seneca. Our temperature is 59.7 degrees and the wind is coming from the southwest at 3 miles per hour. The weather people are predicting great weather for the balance of the weekend. Perfect for outdoor activities-much better than some of the 4ths of the past when it was 60, cloudy and raining.
In the vineyards-more of the same as far as vineyard work goes-suckering, tucking vines into catch wires, protective sprays, and mowing. The weekly report from Cornell Cooperative Extension is telling us that we are now 14 degree (growing days) ahead of a normal year and 14 days ahead of where we were last year. It would seem that the warm temperatures that we are now experiencing will put us even farther ahead. Harvest should be early this year-and also a great one for red wines.
In the cellar-both the Glenora and Knapp Production Teams had their bottling lines in operation this past week. The Knapp Team bottled Grappa, Brandy, Limoncello and Curiosity. The Glenora Team finished the first run of our Trestle Creek Riesling which is packaged in the AstraPouch (again the first wine in the United States to be packaged this way) as well as bottling more Alpine White on Thursday. The Thursday bottling was a bit of history in the making at Glenora as it was the last run for our 1988 GAI bottling line. The team finished bottling at 1:30 PM and by 4 PM the machine was disassembled and out of the bottling room as we began to prepare the room for the installation of the new line which had arrived on Wednesday.
A new Glenora Team-the Construction Team, headed by Glenora partner Scott Welliver arrived on Friday morning to install new floor drains and refinish the floor in the bottling room. By day's end on Friday the new drains were installed and most of the resurfacing had been done. The team returned on Saturday to finish the resurfacing, and will be back today and Monday to put on the finishing coat. A big improvement!!
The "official launch" (meaning we could sell it to wine shops and restaurants) of our Trestle Creek Riesling in our new packaging, the AstraPouch, took place on July 1. Both Christine and Ed are reporting great acceptance in the market place with almost 350 cases being depleted by 12:30 PM on the second day of the launch. We now in the development stage of a Trestle Creek Chardonnay that will be placed in the same packaging.
This past week was a "fowl" week at Knapp, or at least for a couple of hours. During that time period Barb C "clipped the wings" of Bonnie the wandering peahen, the running ducks were moved to their new home near the pond, and the baby geese (who are now teenagers) were moved to a new pen beside the chicken coop.
On the road-If you are attending the IRL races at Watkins Glen International you will find Barb C and the Festival Team there as well-they are pouring and selling Glenora and Knapp's finest.
It is a wedding weekend at Glenora as Sherry and the Inn/Restaurant Team will be hosting their third wedding of the weekend this afternoon. Every wedding is unique which is what makes it interesting and fun for us. Having three weddings in three days also makes it interesting for the Housekeeping Team as they have to "turn" (in most cases) 30 rooms in 4 hours-"check out" is at 11 AM and "check in" is at 3 PM-and because everyone has such a great time at the Inn they always want to check out later, or check in earlier. The Housekeeping Team is great. And then there is the Kitchen/Restaurant Teams-turning the restaurant over (changing the layout) at least 6 times over the weekend along with serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in addition to serving the three wedding receptions-Great job and thanks to everyone for making our guests happy!!
Though for the week: Thought-Words - Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
New Bottling Line just arrived
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