New Nouveau

I am excited!  I am too busy!  I am mad!  I am confused!  These few words sum up this time of year and you have seen me write the winery business is not about money, it’s about the lifestyle of being your own boss and making something people really like.

Yes, the parking situation is an irritant, but we have seen some movement in the form of more information and response from our state representatives. Thanks to all you who have written asking our politicians to help us solve this problem.  One comment was to the effect that one email represents 1000 peoples’ opinion, so your emails do carry weight.

The wines from 2011 are still coming on and we will roll out our 2012 “nouveau”  on Black Friday, this is our second Indiana-grown new vintage wine. Last Thursday was the international Nouveau Beaujolais release, the famous first release of the new vintage. Our grape is a French hybrid called Leon Millot and we were happy to find a small crop from a little vineyard north of Fort Wayne, near Leo.  We brought the totes home, ran the grapes through our new crusher-destemmer, and started a fermentation that ran almost six weeks. Then we drained off the fresh free-run wine and pressed the skins. We racked the wine twice and found it was clarifying nicely and (surprise) even tasted pretty good!

Traditionally, nouveau-style wines are served slightly chilled, are dry with no sweetness, and  taste just “OK”. I think our new wine tastes better then “OK”, but on Black Friday and as long as one barrel lasts, you can make your own determination!

Black Friday at the Winery

For the past few years we have enjoyed sleeping in on the Friday when many folks are getting up at very early hours and going shopping after stuffing themselves with turkey and the fixins. But we must not sleep all day...

So we decided this year we will open at 11.00 am and offer $1 cash rebates on every bottle of wine you buy until 1:00 pm.

We will release our 2011 vintage port-style wine RIVERWALK on this super shopping day. There will be very limited quantities available of this special release.

We hope to also offer you an Indiana grown and Indiana made special "Noveau-style" wine on this day, as well. That assumes the wine is ready and turns out good! (Pretty sure it will!)

This same day we will be open late, until 9:00 pm and be holding our November "WINE NITE"!! These extra special evenings include some special surprises so much fun even I do not know what all of them will be!

I would be not doing my job if I did not remind all of you we have some great GIFT BASKETS priced from $25-$50 on hand. On this Black Friday my lovely wife will be on hand to make any custom gift baskets needed, or adjustments to existing baskets, and offer advice on putting your own gift baskets together. This is a one-day special service, so let's keep her busy all day!!

Parking Eliminated in front of Winery!

On Wednesday, November 7, INDOT came into Converse and installed No Parking signs up and down SR 18. This includes right in front of the Winery, eliminating all of our parking within a two block radius. This will force our customers to walk quite a distance to get to our business. We have received no response to our inquiries as to WHY this action was taken as of Friday. We have written the Govenor and our state representatives. In the ten years we have been here, there have been only two property-damage accidents and NO personal injury accidents as a result of on-street parking at the winery. We believe this action will cost us between 25% and 50% of our drop-in business over the next few months and more beyond. Please email our state representative/senator at the following addresses and express your concern as to this unreasonable restriction on our business. Please cut-n-paste these email addresses into your email. s18@in.gov h32@in.gov

Thanks for your continued support!