Thursday, September 29, 2011

September Update

A couple of weeks ago we held our 9th annual Cheesecake Festival and I’d like to say “thanks” to the 500+ people who turned out. Now if you’ve been to the winery, you might ask how we fit 500+ people into our small tasting room? Thankfully, they did not all come at once! But a steady stream of cheesecake-eaters and wine-tasters made their way here and waited, patiently, for their turn to taste.

This made for the biggest day for both customers and sales in our history and, at the end of the day, feet up, and the stock room depleted, that felt pretty good. Thanks!

Moving forward, we are releasing the 2010 KOKOMO CIDER, our sweet apple wine, on October 1 and I know many look forward to tasting each year’s offering. The last few years we have addressed the problem of “acidity” in apple juice by increasing the tartness through non-chemical means. Apple wine tends to taste “flat” without some acid, thin and watery. So you will detect a slight tart taste to this new batch.

Of course, many customers make our apple wine hot, adding spices like cinnamon to it to enhance the flavor. This is truly become a fall tradition and it finds its way into parties, tail-gating, and a few thermos bottles.

The next event for the year is our Fall Open House on Saturday, October 15, 1-6pm. We open up the wine-making area and conduct 20-minute tours, discussing how we make our wines naturally and the wine business in general. There will be fun, snacks, and informative talk and its all free, like our wine-tasting, with tours on the half hour.

The new 2010 vintage is in full swing with several new wines coming out very soon! Our Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and the 2010 Riesling wines are coming out pretty soon, so watch this space for more information. TEASER: We will be having a BLACK FRIDAY special event for 2011, keep watching!