Yesterday was “Black
Friday” and for a number of years we have participated by opening early (11 am,
I like to get my rest) and by having a few “doorbuster” sale items. We had a
nice steady flow of customers and we sold a good bit of wine and a few of the
doorbuster items. We had a Wine Nite as part of the evening festivities and a
lot of folks came out for that.
One lady said she
appreciated we were not packed with customers. True, business was steady all
day, but we were never packed. We are packed on Chocolate and Cheesecake
festivals; we are really busy on Open House days. But on Black Friday we had
time to spend with customers, especially those buying gifts of wine for friends
and family.
A common problem
people have is which wine to buy for a person whose taste they do not know
well. We tend to steer folks to the best sellers based on whether their recipient
like sweet or dry wine. If that is unknown, we tend to suggest those in the
middle, off-dry to semi-sweet.
A winner this year is
our so-called “Nouveau” wine for 2013, STOCKDALE. This past September we were
choosing what grapes we wanted to buy for this fall to make for 2014. On a
whim, I bought a French-hybrid grape I had used in years past called “Baco Noir”,
typically made into a dry red wine.
So I bought a small
batch of the Baco, with the intent of trying to make a young, drinkable wine we
could feature on Black Friday as our celebration of the 2013 vintage. We
ferment our juice into wine at very cold temperatures, 60-65 degrees, so it can
take 25-30 days for a full fermentation. We started the process on October 21 and on
November 18 I moved the wine (“racking” in wine-speak) into a clean barrel and
let it set for five days to settle it a bit, then we bottled it. On Thursday
(28th) we test-tasted it and declared it very good! We decided to
not sweeten it at all, it was below ½ percent residual sugar and tasted best
slightly chilled. So that’s what we got and happily, customers liked it well
enough to buy it on its release the next day.
Of course, it could
have been bitter and harsh, as many new wines are and not at all drinkable. My
experience is an ingredient to making a great wine, but it all starts with the
fruit and we got some dandy fruit in 2013. We hope you’ll stop in before 2014
and try some now, including our Nouveau…
