PV newsletter Oct-2024

	Perennial Vintners	In this issue:
		■ Hours/events: Autumn/Winter hrs
		■ Tasting: running low, and new wines
		■ Awards
Newsletter -- Oct-2024		■ Vineyard: Harvest
(Click here to view in HTML on website)		■ "DTC" - Wine Shipping & labels
http://www.PerennialVintners.com/		■ Puget Sound AVA Anniversary

■ Hours/events: Autumn/Winter hrs

We are now on Winter open hours: weekends only, Sat-Sun 11am-5pm

Most important! Remember, Mother Nature may dictate unscheduled closings for harvest work. During October, it's recommended that you call/txt ahead.

Other days may be available by reservation, use our website app, or call/txt my cell 206-780-2146. (Note that Summer hours are May through September.)

Of course you can always shop online if making it to the winery is not convenient.

■ Tasting: running low, and new wines

We've changed over our tasting selections to emphasize Winter comfy wines, like our Syrah. In addition, our wine list:

Roseus: sold out

Sparkling Siegerrebe: New vintage, now 2021

Siegerrebe (still): New vintage, now 2022

Sparkling Melon de Bourgogne: First sparkling MdB in WA State!

Melon de Bourgogne (still): New vintage, now 2022

■ Awards

We have some excellent contest results to report:

Seattle Wine Awards:

Melon de Bourgogne 2020, Gold

Sparkling Melon de Bourgogne NV, Gold

Sparkling Siegerrebe 2021, Gold

Siegerrebe 2020, Gold

Plant-A-Tree Red Blend, Silver

Cascadia Wine Awards:

Melon de Bourgogne 2020, Silver

Lemberger 2020, Silver

Northwest Wine Competition:

Sparkling Melon de Bourgogne NV, Gold

Melon de Bourgogne 2021, Silver

Lemberger 2020, Gold

Sparkling Rose' 2020, Silver

Roseus, Bronze

What I'm most proud of though, is that almost every wine we entered, received a medal!

■ Vineyard: Harvest

This time of year everything is all about harvest. Over the next few weeks, we'll be putting up netting to protect the grapes from birds, raccoons, and yellowjackets. Within a few weeks, we'll do the actual harvest. After harvest, we'll have to bring in the netting, do an end-of-year spray, replace any failed plants, start applying compost and fertilizer, and that'll keep us busy through the rainy months, until pruning time in February.

■ "DTC" - Wine Shipping & labels

Direct-To-Consumer or just DTC, is what the industry calls it when the winery ships your order directly to you. This is a nightmare of permits, licenses and regulations that are different in each state, including some states where it's just plain illegal. For the states that simply have onerous licensing and such, we use a third-party company to take care of this - they handle the paperwork for us.

In some cases, a state may make it impossible to do DTC. As of 2025, CA is requiring a new marking of "CA REDEMPTION VALUE" on wine labels. (Google "ca crv labeling" for more info.) Imagine if a label had to have separate such declarations for every state - with 50 states there would be no room for actual label info! It will not be cost effective for small wineries like PV to re-do our labels for this compliance, so we may have to stop shipping to CA next year.

■ Puget Sound AVA Anniversary

An American Viticultural Area (aka AVA, or Appellation), is a federally designated area of grape growing. Many countries around the world have similar designations. In America, one can petition to establish an AVA, and if compliant, the proposal is opened for public comment, and if it passes evaluation, it can become law.

Gerard Bentryn, who established Bainbridge Island Vineyard and Winery in the 1970's, realized that the Puget Sound region should have a proper AVA. Gerard had been a scientist with NOAA, and (before the internet made this research easy!), he dug into thermoclines, rainfall pattern maps, soil profiles, etc., and created the proposed Puget Sound AVA. It passed open selection and was established in the Federal Register on 04-Oct-1995. (More info on Wikipedia-Puget Sound AVA.)

Although the 2nd largest AVA in WA State by raw acreage, we are the smallest by actual planted vineyard. We have ~25 wineries that grow grapes in the PS AVA, out of ~1,100 wineries in the state. ~100 acres of vineyard, out of ~65,000 in the state.

Happy anniversary PS AVA!