"Thread the Needle Day"

July 25, 2010

The  morning skies over the vineyards of Glenora and the shores of Seneca are overcast with an occasional sprinkle being felt. The temperature is 72 degrees and the wind is out of the southwest at 2 miles per hour. The weather guru's are predicting better weather, if you like sun, this afternoon.

In the vineyard-it was a "bullet" (actually hail) dodging week for vineyardists in Finger Lakes Wine Country. From the reports that we received most growers (vines) made it through unscathed, although that was not the case for everyone. Our vineyards "dodged well" and survived without and damage (knocking on wood). The other interesting weather pattern was the way the  rain storms rumbled through the area, with some parts of wine country getting downpours two to three times a day, while others were getting no rain-at Glenora we received just under an inch of rain-it was needed.

In the Cellar-the bottling lines and labeling machines were rumbling at both Glenora and Knapp this past week. In addition to bottling more of our 2009 Riesling (800 cases this time) the Glenora Team bottled Bobsled Red along with applying our new labels to several wines that had been bottled previously, The Knapp Team bottled Barrel Reserve Chardonnay, Seyval and George's Peach.

Winemaker Steve returned from attending Riesling Rendezvous with lots new ideas, contacts and accolades for our wines. This past week he started his "vineyard visits" to check the grapes and beginning to get samples so that he can measure Brix (sugar), acid and pH. According to most reports, and our records as well, we are 14-15 days ahead of last year's growing season. It is looking more and more like an early harvest.

It is now official (well actually it has been for a couple of weeks), we are going to be producing a Trestle Creek Chardonnay which will be packaged in the Astra Pouch. The label has been designed (thanks Erin), it has verbal approval from TTB (thank Kerry) and the packages are about to be ordered (thanks Dave). At this point we anticipate that the Trestle Creek Chardonnay should be in the marketplace by early September. And speaking of Astra Pouches we were pleased to learn that our most recent shipment of pouches, from South Africa, has cleared customs in NYC and will be at the winery on Wednesday, another 2400 cases to be filled.

And speaking of labels and label approvals we are close to being in the final stages of a new label design for our Lakes Series Wines, and are also working on label design for the Fruit Series, Jammin Red, and Bobsled Red. Thank goodness for e-mail, j-pegs, and lots of patience from our label designer.

The Festival Team had a great weekend at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival. It was a great sales weekend with sales of 225 cases, which is 2700 bottles or 16,200 4 oz. glasses. Figuring that the were approximately 14 hours of selling time at the event the team was selling 16 cases per hour, or 193 bottles per hour, or 1157 glasses per hour-a great job-Thank you Festival Team, and also a special thanks to the folks at Watkins Glen International for hosting and promoting a great event! This week the Team is on the road again-Leann was at the Crusin nite event in Geneva on Friday evening, and Barb, Tasha and the Festival Team is in Oswego at the Harbor Festival-lot of exciting reports coming from there-details next week!

The Inn and Restaurant Team continue on with their weekly wedding schedule-with weddings on Friday and Saturday (yesterday) and a bridal shower today. This coming weekend it is a wedding on Friday, Saturday and Sunday-another Triple Header!!

Last evening the Knapp Team presented another of their monthly wine dinners. This month's theme was "Estate Garden Dinner" which featured products from our gardens and chickens. The five course dinner was paired with wines from Knapp, Glenora, and Zugibe. We also celebrated the birthdays of three young ladies who were guests and the one month anniversary of the first date of Hank Stark and Debbie Ciciulla-they met, sort of, at the last wine dinner.The next dinner will be on August 21st and is titled-"Thrill with the Grill". Another great job by John and the Knapp restaurant team, with capable assistance from Chef Fred Zugibe.

Thought for the week:  Actions  -  The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.

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