new year

It is the end of another year and as I have had the opportunity to do for every year since we opened, I want to thank each person who has visited the winery for their business. We have had another sales-breaking year and that encourages us, especially right now when we are running on little sleep and had little recreation outside the winery for the past two months. You make us feel like it’s worth it.

We are running a business, true enough, but a customer once said wine is “artwork in a bottle”. I love making wine and my wife and I love meeting people and talking wine with them. We love the people who come in and say, “WE know nothing about wine!” and we love the serious wine drinkers who come in and say, “WE like your wines; they are special, unique, different!” Those are what make owning a small winery worthwhile.

As you may have heard before, we started this winery with the hope of allowing an early retirement, an opportunity to make a modest living working for ourselves. Few people get rich owning a winery, but you can make a living if you are good enough and make the right decisions. The idea of opening a winery is not about wealth, its about passion and desiring to live your dream. And you who visit the winery are enabling us to live that dream.

Thank you.

whine, wine, whine,

I have been a bit frustrated in the winery lately with how the wine is maturing. I expected to have several new wines out by now, but we have just a couple. Now that does not mean there is nothing new. The fruit wines have been re-blended and, I think, greatly improved. The new dry red, VAN BUREN, continues to be a good seller. Gift baskets have stressed my wife, to keep up I mean. But that’s normal for this time of year, we pretty much are swamped day and night and that’s just the way is is. In January we can relax….

I was asked why we were having problem getting some of our more popular wines to the point of bottling and the truth is, well, I screwed up! I did not take in to consideration that the big upswing in sales last winter/spring would impact availability fall/winter. So we did not order more of our Concord, Catawaba, and Niagara juice early enough o allow them to be ready for prime sales time, that would be NOW!

So, we will shortly have several of our old favorites back in the bottle, just not now, when we really need them. I am enthused about a new wine, WHITEWATER, we expect to release after the new year that is a great blend of three good grapes, watch for us to tell you who-when-what here soon!

Well, I am back in the winery, bottling some more of these apple wines you guys keep buying. Thanks, by the way…

Nick and Knacs

Oh boy do my arms hurt! We got 20 new barrels in and I have been trying to make room for them and five big tanks in the winery. Yes, here at the peak of the winemaking season we are bringing more juice so we’ll have it when we need it next year. The winery is going to be chock full of barrels and tanks and there will be little room to work around in there. Oh well…

So we are very happy with the feedback from our 2010 “nouveau” wine, VAN BUREN, made with the Indiana-grown Chambourcin grapes. We serve it slightly chilled, but I like it room temperature myself. Its pretty fruit-forward, as we say in wine-speak and I like it better than any other nouveau style wine I’ve ever made.

We are trying to get the BUNKER HILL sweet Concord wine in the bottle, but its just not quite ready. We are going to bottle the new vintage SWAYZEE, HANGING ROCK, and WILDCAT CREEK WHITE very soon. I’ll let you know.

Our “Black Friday” promotion went much better than we thought it would, a lot of people took advantage of our early hours, special deals, and free eats. It was fun and we sold a lot of wine, yea!

Just a few weeks left in 2010 and this has been great year for the winery. Thanks to all those who visited, tasted and took home a few bottles. We are working on some new stuff at the winery we hope you will find interesting and exciting. Keep an eye here and we’ll keep you up to date. We will also make the announcement here when the 2009 BUNKER HILL is (finally) in house and for sale.