Honey, where are the TV trays?

The mess has officially begun! Every fall we dig out the boxes of stuff we need to build the gift baskets we sell by then bunch load and thus, we lose our dining room.

Oh, for those of you who do not know, we live next door to the winery. We do all the winemaking, sales, bottling, and tasting in the old 1894 carriage house we converted into our small winery. The problem is its really not big enough, so we do a few things in the house and one that always makes a big mess is the gift basket assembly area i.e. the dining room table.

For the last three months of the year I eat among bows, ribbons, grass packing material, wine glasses, and all the do-hickies that we put in the gift baskets, Boxes and boxes of stuff, piled six to seven feet high, its an obstacle course to just get through the place.

Now, I am not complaining. Its great when someone comes in during the winter and says, “A friend gave me a gift basket with your wine in it and we decided to come over and do a tasting!”

I have to laugh when I remember the harried guy who came rushing up the stairs, burst into the tasting room, and said in a loud voice, “Honey, we’re golden, they do have gift baskets!” It seems someone forgot to pick-up a house-warming gift and halfway there it dawned on them they had nothing with which to warm the new house.

My favorite though will remain the solid looking, gray-haired man with a mustache who came in and said, “I had never tasted your wine before, figured ot was all sweet. The I got a gift basket from a business friend with your dry reds and I thought they were good. So here I am to see what you’ve got in toto.” Made me think of the actor Ronald Coleman and a heavy English accent. He would have made a great butler, but acted more like he had one himself.

So, pay attention to the gift baskets next time you are in, $19.95 to $49.95, my wife went to a lot of work to make them, so take one or two home!