Black Friday Nouveau 2013

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 (28^th) 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…

Surviving September, On to October!

Life in the winery is rarely boring. Looking back over the last few weeks, we survived the Cheesecake Festival crowds, and we move forward to the next big event, our Fall Open House. I am pleased at the response every spring and fall to our opening of the winemaking area and the 20 minute tours we offer, explaining our unique winemaking methods.

The Fall Open House also brings the release of our new sweet apple wine for 2013: KOKOMO CIDER. After making this wine for ten years, many of you already know how popular this wine is and the high demand it brings as we move in to the holiday seasons.  For all but last year, we have gotten our apple juice from the local Hainlen Orchard. The 2012 drought killed the apple crop, so we went north to Michigan and found some good apple juice. We expect the good apple crop will allow us to return to local apple for next year, but this 2012 vintage show good promise.

On Saturday, October 5, we will have Kokomo Cider for tasting and sale. But not just tasting as a cold, refreshing beverage, but also as a hot, spiced wine you can make to delight friends and (adult) family.  Right now, we have the dry INDIANA APPLE on the shelf, using the same juice, so stop in and try a taste, you will be surprised.

 Another new wine on the shelf is RED BRIDGE, a dry cranberry wine we bottled a small batch of to satisfy the demand of some of our wine club members. We had done some barrel tasting with the wine club and they kept saying “the dry cranberry was good, bottle it!” I never planned on making a dry cranberry, this is the next vintage of our Bordermen, a sweet cranberry. That wine is still in production, but we have Red Bridge right now.
 

Hope to see you ALL at the Fall Open House!

so summer is upon us...

Warm weather is finally upon us and the winery is amping up for a busy summer. May 18 isour Spring Open House and I always enjoy giving tours of our little facility.

Indiana wine news is all good. There was a late frost that may have caused some damage to the grapes in some hoosier vineyards, but most vines survived well. Several new vineyards statewide are coming into fruit for the first time and we look forward to that new crop

New hoosier wineries are opening every year. As we approach our tenth anniversary we recal when we opened we were one of few wineries north of Indianapolis. Now we have four within less then an hours drive of us.

EE winery near Huntington is hoping to open Memorial Day weekend and we look forward to it! The new "wine" wine trail is debuting this sumner. And Vintage Indian is coming soon!

We have been working hard on some new wines and the old favorites are here as well.  We hope you'll stop in for a taste; a glass; or a bottle soon.

COMING NEXT: OUR FREE SUMMER FESTIVALS

December Midway

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 25^th 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 22^nd, 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!

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!

Weather & Wine

It’s been a weird summer weather wise, I know we all agree, and I am asked often how it will affect the grape crop. I listen to smarter people than myself regarding this frankly, because while I have a great deal of interest in the outcome of the crop, since I am not a vineyard owner. So I do not have the experience of year-in-year-out growing grapes and seeing them develop.

That said, I do have more experience than the average person, so I guess its reasonable to ask me the question.  As I said, I listen to smart people about this and I am hearing two stories.  The first is the heat and drought will give us intense flavors but not much quantity due to smaller berries.  Now there’s been a wet August, which might help this for some kinds of grapes and hurt those with a longer growing season. So some good news, some bad. Got that?

Second line I hear is after the warm spring, followed by a late frost in some areas, the crop was diminished and the drought did not help it at all. This late rain is washing away any advantage in flavor intensity we might have gained, it’s a bad year.
 

Me, I am waiting for the grapes.  Let’s let the grapes tell us what they been up to, what they have given us to work with. I suspect we’ll see some great grapes this year and some fair ones.  We don’t buy bad grapes, so no problem there!

So it’s the end of summer and as you “regulars” know, we start rolling out the new vintage wines about now.  The first few are out, hope you’ve tried them, but if not, here’s some notes on them:
 
WILDCAT CREEK WHITE: This label has been a favorite for the past few years, a dry, fruity, white wine made with Vidal grapes from Michigan.  This past year we had some problems finding good Vidal, so we bought some Muscato juice to fill in the gap. No, WCW is not a Muscato, that one is still coming. But we did find some Cayuga White, blended in the last of the Vidal from 2010 and that’s the new WCW. The early reviews are good, see what you think.
 
SWEET SALAMONIE: Now, a few years ago we ran a very sweet white wine based on Cayuga White and it was a winner and I am happy to tell you its back!  We bottled a test batch and it sold out, so we bottled a full batch and its going good too!  It will go well on the Cheesecake Festival, its that sweet.

ROANN: Last fall I made a small batch of blueberry wine and frankly, I was not too fond of it.  But there were some customers who loved it! So I again made a SMALL batch of our 2011 blueberry wine, blended in a little Gewürztraminer to balance the taste, now you see what you think.

PERU PEACH: The big surprise for the summer was how well people liked our latest peach wine.  Our naturally-made fruit wines do have unique flavors, but a lot of folks like this one.

We have two dry reds, a Malbec and a Zinfindel coming out soon. An off-dry Sauvignon Blanc is about ready and I have my hands in a different take on Riesling, but that one is still in the works.  I have been asked about our port-style wine, RIVERWALK, and yes, we have a new batch coming. Getting pretty close!

FREE CHEESCAKE FESTIVAL: What does wine have to do with cheesecake? You can sip wine while you eat it, of course, but for us it’s the biggest event of the year! We bring in 10-15 commercially-made cheesecakes; you taste them; then vote on your favorite!  Oh, and try some wine while you are here!  September 15, 1-6 pm.

Tasting Plus 2012 Event Schedule

So wine, like life, goes on. Not a deep thought but certainly one filled with truth. I see wines I really love selling out and walk downstairs to the winery and look at the barrels and ask myself, “Can I do it again?” Gladly, with ten years of commercial winemaking under the belt I know the answer is “Yes!” Every year brings different wines with different flavors and, as the old saying goes, “You can’t make all the people happy all the time.”

Yesterday I had a nice group of four people do a tasting and they raved about most all the wine and bought a case. My next group of five had three in it that hated every wine I poured for them, but the other two liked several and bought what they liked. That’s the way it is and its really one reason I love the whole winery concept. Try before you buy and buy what you really like. Now it’s true a number of wineries have started charging for tasting, typically $2 to $5 dollars, although I have heard as high as $10!! I know some charge to offset the cost of tasting, some to discourage non-buyers, and others because they just do not like to wash glasses, they sell you a glass for the tasting. We’ll stick to free tasting here tho’….

We’ve got our summer free-event schedule complete. June 16th is the Strawberry Festival; we’ll introduce a new strawberry wine and offer fresh strawberries and toppings. July 21 will be our ninth annual Chocolate Anniversary with gourmet chocolate and lots of fun. August 18 starts Cheese Days, parting wine with free samples. Our Cheesecake Festival is September 15 and it’s our Big Event, so come early to sample some great desserts.

Cold Weather and Free Events

So we had hot spring weather, then we had several days of frosty weather and the result was not good. Although, we will not know exactly how badly the frost damaged the Indiana grapes are for several months. We hope its not too bad, but we still might get some good results from the late budding varieties.

We have some good stuff scheduled here at the winery:

First the next Wine Nite is Saturday, April 21, 6-9 pm. Stop in and join us for wine tasting, have a glass of wine, and meet some new friends.

Our biggest event of the Spring is our Open House, where we open the winery up and invite all to join us for free tours on the half-hour, some special surprises, and a lot of fun, Come on out Saturday, May 5,from 1-6 pm, we’ll show you our unique methods for making wine and answer your wine questions.

As we move into Summer, watch here and the newsletter for details on our Big FREE Events every month, including July’s HUGE Chocolate Festival and always popular, September’s Cheesecake Festival.

More to come…

Winter & Wine

I am loving this so-called “winter weather” and it is having an effect on the grape crop for this year. Warmer winter weather can cause the buds to begin to develop early and if there is a late frost, it can destroy the crop fairly easily. So as the daffodils push through and bloom, thinking its April, we hope the grapes keep their heads down and we have no heavy frosts to come.

The Wine Nite this past weekend was a Big Success! We had a houseful of wine drinkers, the music was loud, and the talking was furious. A couple who had never been to a wine night and knew no one there remarked, “These people are extremely friendly, we sat down and they just drew us into their conversation!” Its true, when a group of Wine Club members get together, they like to talk and don’t care who they talk to!

We were also gratified to have several customers comment on how much they appreciated the Wine Nites as an opportunity for them to get in to buy wine, after their usual work times. The Wine Nite idea was a result of comments like this, but I must admit, they’ve turned into a monthly party as much as anything!

At Wine Nite, we introduced the new EEL RIVER semi-sweet red wine, made with Pinot Noir, and the response was quite favorable. I have been getting some grief about a few of the fruit wines we have run out of, so we are THINKING about starting a new batch of all the fruit wines; that's THINKING! We’ll keep you up to date as to the thought process as it progresses…

What is good news is how the 2011 wines are progressing, especially the Foch we use for the dry red, HANGING ROCK, and the semi-sweet SWAYZEE. We hope to have these in the bottle by mid March.

We expect to have the dates for the March and April Wine Nites and free seminars out pretty soon, as well as the May Spring Open House, first of the Big Events for 2012. Keep a watch here for details!

So You Want To Make Wine, Huh?

So, it’s about an hour before The Big Game and business has been very slow in the winery. Typical for a Big Game day, so wine drinkers do like football? Apparently…

I spent the weekend working on the new semi-sweet red wine that’s replacing the old EEL RIVER, made with Cab Franc, with different taste using Pinot Noir. Its hard to get the great flavor of a dry red wine in a semi-sweet, but I think we might have a winner here. I will knock out a test batch in the next week or so and offer it at the next WINE NITE!

Oh, I should mention our next WINE NITE is Saturday, February 18, 6-9pm. For those of you new to the blog, a Wine Nite is where we stay open till 9 instead of 6 pm; we play music loud, and people talk even louder, and the last few have been very busy!

The next free seminar is being held on Sunday, February 26, 4:30-6 pm; the topic is: HOME WINEMAKING BASICS. The program will discuss the ins-and-outs of making your own wine and mistakes to avoid. We’ll talk costs, where you can buy stuff, and how bad might your first batch be? Send an email with HOME WINEMAKING in the topic line and reserve your spot; only 20 spots open, so do not wait too long! oakhillwinery@yahoo.com

The free seminar for March will be “Midwest Wine Destinations – planning a winery getaway” and April will feature “Starting Your Own Winery” for those of you with a spare few hundred thousand to toss around! Watch here for scheduling!

May's Spring Open House planning is underway! This big event draws hundreds in to see our modest winemaking set-up and a fun Q&A with the winemaker himself. There will be some fun too, so again, watch the blog for more information!

New Year, New Wine?

I spend more time in the tasting room in the winter and early spring. Yes, its because business is slower this time of year and I am cheap about having help in with little to do. Oh, and I like to reconnect with customers and get feedback on the wine.

I tend to piddle with wine left over from the prior vintage while things are slower. This sometimes gets me kudos and sometimes gets me trashed. I am in the process of bottling a new dry white wine using the Indiana Seyval Blanc. I love a crisp, clean, simple Seyval and our MISSISSINEWA WHITE has been in our line since 2003. But I have been monkeying with it and we'll see if I get trashed or kudo'ed!?

The sweet wine lovers can look forward to February when I hope to offer the new versions of SWEET SALAMONIE and WATERTOWER, both white wines that come close to pegging the sweet-o-meter. As I wrap these up, I start tweaking a new semi-sweet red and trying to get the new vintage Foch wines ready to bottle.

Tomorrow is our January Wine Nite and as I sit here typing the snow is piling up, but the weatherpersons are promising it will break in the morning and clear up for the day. I just hope we can get the people in here for Wine Nite, I think its fun and i get to sell a little wine!

We kick off our free seminars on the 29th with a wine basics class for those who want to know more about the wine world. We'll talk about wine names, types, appellations, regions, and descriptors. We only have room for 20 to 25 people for these little workshops, so sign up soon if you want to attend!

“Help, my dining room is full of gift baskets!”

So I got yelled at recently by a customer who said, "I have been waiting two months for your blog on the dining room full of gift baskets thing, what happened?"

Ok, fair enough, but its not all that funny when its happening. Every year my wife takes on the task of making ALOT of gift baskets for the winery. Its a lot of work, of course, because she is picky about what she puts into the baskets and how they are put together.

Begining in around July, she starts looking for baskets and stuff to put in them, although I have seen her sneak bags full of items in throughout the year with the explanation, "There was a closeout!". These items are socked away in our guest bedroom (thus no overnite house guests September thru December) and brought out in early October for assembly.

From that point on, the dining room in the center of our home is piled high and full of grass bedding, baskets of all shapes and sizes, ribbon, plastic wrap, and do-hickies to jazz up the baskets.

Oh, plus candy and snacks too. See, I have been known to snack on my way through the dining room and this results often in me getting yelled at for eating the basket goodies. True enough, but first of all, I see it as compensation for the inconvenience and secondarily, she should factor in my "grazing" as I have done this for years!

At times, its a real obstacle course walking through the house as the piles spill into the walkway or path through the dining room. This huge "mess" casues another interesting development: my wife does prefers to not have any visitors see her home looking "this way". I say, we will explain what this pile of stuff is and they will understand. Uh, no! We greet family and other personal visitors in the winery instead of our home and we take them out to eat instead of offering my wife's great home cooking.

This is one of the many sacrifices one makes for owning a small winery. I guess its a fairly small one in the greater scheme of things, losing a dining room while gaining a winery. Maybe we could add on to the winery? Hummmmm???

Good Deed

So my wife and I took off for the weekend at the first of the year, a few days to rest and recharge after the demanding holiday season.

While we we gone, the area experienced some very high winds that broke our swinging sign, snapping off one side and causing the sign to swing about on the one hook.

This could have very easily allowed our (expensive!) sign to bash itself to pieces against the sign post.

But someone came and unhooked the other side and left it laying by our stairs. We have patched the sign back together and it is once again back in place.

THANK YOU! To this anonymous Samaritan(s) who went to considerable trouble to do this Good Deed. It almost restores one's faith in humanity!

Is it REALLY a "wonderland"?

The cold weather has rolled in and although its technically still “Autumn” it sure feels like WINTER to me! Of course, here at the Winery we are in the full force gale of the gift buying season. The big sellers are certainly the sweet fruit wines we introduced last month. I’ll spend this weekend making sure we have plenty in stock of the cherry, raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry.

Next Saturday, December 17, we will hold our next WINE NITE! From 6-9 pm we will remain open and have a good stock of wine for you to buy as gifts or drink yourself! There might be music and a little dancing, if we have a bit to drink first!

Gift baskets are always a big item this time of year. My lovely wife spends hours putting nice collections together for a wide variety of price ranges. We had been talking this summer with how hard it has been to keep basket prices starting under $20, yet when she brought the first 20 baskets out, she still managed to have a good group at $19.95!! With a single bottle of wine priced from $10.99 to $12.99, you can buy that bottle wrapped in a gift basket for just a few dollars more!

Wines coming down the track include the Riesling/Gewurztraminer blend we call WATERTOWER, a very sweet white wine we hope to have anytime now; a dry white wine with a nice French-Oak taste will be out in February using the popular Seyval Blanc wine we call MISSISSINEWA WHITE as a basis; and yes, I am still playing with a peach wine, something we have not offered in several years, patience!

So while we are in the midst of our busiest season, we look forward to the cold winter in some sense, to its end and the coming of spring. Keep in mind the winter also brings (as of Jan 1) a change in our hours. We are only open Saturday and Sunday 1-6 pm for five months during winter and spring. However, we do offer free 90-minute seminars throughout the winter and spring, so watch here for dates

Hope to see you in the winery soon!

Friday nights not so black...

So a customer asked me why most wineries are not open later and I said, “It has been my experience few people come to buy wine after 6 pm.” During the first few years we were open, we tried being open every Friday until 9 pm and the result was I got a lot of work done, but not too many people stopped in to taste wine.

That said, we had fun on our “Friday Wine Night” last weekend with a good turnout and good feedback on the event. So I guess we’ll try a Wine Night in December and maybe a few more through the cold, dark, winter!

We are getting on track for our Black Friday event as well. We have been bottling fruit wines and have our special release wine, RIVERWALK, ready for tasting on Friday. We will be working the winery ourselves all weekend, so stop on in and say “Hi” and take a few bottles of wine home!

I have had a few emails about wine that pairs well with turkey, for obvious reasons. I suggest MISSISSINEWA WHITE for our dry wine lovers and WINDFALL for the semi-sweet wine drinkers. We recently tweaked the WINDFALL and I am extremely pleased with the result, so stop in and try the new version of this fruit wine.

Next time, we’ll talk about my wife’s life this time of year, entitled “Help, my dining room is full of gift baskets!”

Whats New & Exciting?

So we are now hip-deep into the busy season at the winery and yet, are having fun! What’s happening and what is new? Read on…

We have started the roll out of the new sweet wines including our cranberry and blackberry already on the shelf. Coming soon is the raspberry and the cherry, blueberry may be a while yet! A new version of our sweet Gewurztraminer is in the works too, watch here and the website for updates. If you have not tried the new IRON BRIDGE, a semi-sweet Riesling, you need too! The buttery finish is making it very popular.

Dry wines? Yes, the latest Chambourcin looks great and tastes better and the superb Shiraz still sells very well, new batches of both in the tasting room! Piddling with a dry Riesling made with Johannesburg Riesling grapes that has a nice light flavor, I am. It is a nice counterpoint to the new Pinot Grigio we introduced last month and YES I do have some Seyval Blanc getting oaked, but I think it will still be after the new year before we will get excited about bottling it.

Special Events? There are TWO in the near future: Our first FRIDAY WINE NITE will be Friday, November 18th from 7pm to 9 pm (?) and is open to all. Wait, what is a “Friday Wine Night”? We will be open later (we normally close at 6) and will serve wine, but will have limited tasting available and there will be music, maybe dancing, and weather permitting, a fire pit in the wine garden. Oh yes, the Winemaker himself will be your host, so stop in and have a glass (or a bottle) and most importantly, HAVE FUN!

Second special event: BLACK FRIDAY! Friday, November 25 we will open at 11 am and will offer special deals until 1 pm. Then we will be open regular hours 1-6 pm for your shopping convenience. Wait, there is going to be a SPECIAL RELEASE that day; a wine unlike any the Oak Hill Winery has ever offered! So special it is a very small release quantity-wise. Stop in and rest from your weary sale shopping here and we will rub your feet (not!) and polish your credit cards (no way), while listening to your shopping adventure stories! See you there!

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!

To taste or not to taste

I have been surprised at the number of wineries both in and out of state who have chosen to begin charging for wine tasting and/or severely limit the number of tastes you may try when visiting. If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you would be well aware I am not in favor of paid or limited tastings. I do respect the right of other winemakers to run their business as they see fit.

So why do I revisit this issue? Back in the latter part of June we had a nice little group of ten individuals stop in on a Saturday for a tasting. All went well and they wrapped up their visit sharing a few bottles of wine. As I spoke to them, I asked what brought them to our winery? One of the ladies spoke up quite loudly, “We saw on your website you did not charge for tasting. A lot of wineries want $5 or more per person!” I had to smile as the ten people left with over two cases of wine.

This past Sunday we had a car club stop by as part of a scheduled tour of the area. I received an email today thanking us for the hospitality and commenting on the fact that we were willing to let them try all our wines, which led them to buying wines they would not have typically purchased based purely on sweetness level.

We had planned to hold another winery bus tour this summer, but ran into a problem with the area we wanted to go. Four of the nine wineries we wanted to tour informed us they wanted $5 to $8 a person for group tasting; Five of the wineries informed us we could try six or eight wines only. When these matters were discussed within the bus tour committee, it was determined to cancel the trip and do more research for next spring’s trip so as to avoid this problem.

I would like to hear from you your opinions, feelings, and the effect, if any, that the paid or limited tasting policies have had on your wine buying. It is NOT my intent to start a movement or build a case to convince other wineries to change their policies. We just want to know what you think. Send your thoughts to oakhillwinery@yahoo.com with the subject line “paid tasting” and I will later print some excerpts from your comments.

And always remember, we offer free winetasting, because at the Oak Hill Winery, the proof is in the tasting!