So its mid-December,
its 40+ degrees, and we are back to concentrating on wine-making rather than
parking! It was quite a hit to lose 100%
of our parking the first week of November and on through December 10, but it’s
nice to know if you raise a lot of noise you can get some reaction. Our state representatives and the Governor’s
office all pressed INDOT to revisit their decision to remove ALL parking in
front of the winery. Unfortunately, the Town Board recommended using the south
side of the street for parking to INDOT, in consideration of a part-time
funeral home east of us that has one to three services a month! We have
hundreds of people every week, but they get parking on their side of the
street. But as mentioned, its time for
us to move on and get back to making wine rather than fighting “city hall”.
We did a new
bottling of our two Niagara grape wines, JALAPA and FAIRMOUNT, and feel these
are much better wines then their prior batches. 2011 was the oddest batch of
Niagara juice we have ever seen; it tasted fine, looked good scientifically,
but turned out fair at best. I worked on
the barrels remaining and got them cleared up visually and tuned up,
taste-wise. See what you think next time
in.
The
Nouveau-style wine, EEL RIVER, is making lots of new friends. This off-dry red
wine made with Indiana-grown 2012 Leon Millot grapes turned out much better than
expected for is youth. Our port-style,
RIVERWALK, is also a great wine according to tasters.
We will be open every day except the 25th through the end of December, January 1 we go back to our winter-spring schedule of weekends only, 1-6 pm. It still surprises me how many people do not know we can be open on Sundays and sell carry-out wine. Please tell a friend, Sundays can be very slow in the depths of winter!
The only disappointments I have had this 2011 vintage ares the Muscat and Sauvignon Blanc wines have not been ready to make an appearance. I guess that will make their arrival in 2013 something to look forward to!
Please note our final 2012 Wine Nite will be December 22nd, 6-9 pm. If you have not made a Wine Nite, they are full of fun, surprises and lots of people talking and drinking wine. I suspect this one might be a bit quieter as it hits on a holiday weekend, so if you are free, come out and join us and we will have fun together!
