(Click on any image below to go to website with more information/larger image/etc.) ▪ Schedule: Open this Weekend Our next official open day is this weekend, 23,24-Mar. This is a Winery Alliance of Bainbridge Island event with all wineries open both days - everyone's doing barrel tasting, so it'll be a very special event. We'll be open 11am 'til 5pm, the other wineries open at noon. Special notes for this weekend: - We'll be pouring our new Syrah red wine (this is our barrel tasting) - If someone who reads this newsletter asks, we'll open Magelica (but you've got to ask!) - We'll also have chocolate from Yukon Jacksons made with our Frambelle wine ▪ Competitions & Awards It's expensive to enter wine competitions, so I haven't entered a lot of competitions in the past, though when I have, I've usually done well. Regardless, this year I decided to enter a few local competitions anyways. I'm glad I did -- the first contest entered is SavorNW, where we got 5 medals! You'll find us under Other Red, Other White, and Dessert Wine, and Fruit Wine categories. ▪ Farmers Markets update PV will be starting up at the West Seattle Farmers Market on Sun. 31-Mar. We're planning to be there every other week. We'll also be starting up at Poulsbo Farmers Market on their opening day, Sat. 06-Apr. We also plan to be at this market every other week. We're still working on Bainbridge, hopefully we'll be there for opening day, Sat. 13-Apr and probably once monthly after that. ▪ Vineyard: Cleanup, new block, wreathmaking In the vineyard I've finished pruning, yay! About 3 weeks early this year, due mostly to the fine dry Winter we've had, plus help from several volunteers. Interestingly, the plants have come out of dormancy 3-4 weeks early this year. As long as we don't get a nasty freeze in the next month, this bodes well for a nice early start to the growing year. As mentioned last month, the next big project is expanding the vineyard block above the driveway. I'll be clearing this area of stuff before we bring in the tree clearing equipment. There will be plenty of work clearing, planting, putting in posts and wires, etc., so please consider joining our helpers email list so you can find out when we'll be doing things, we could really use your help! We still need to pick up the sticks and pile them for burning. The grape canes are excellent for making holiday wreathes -- instead of a metal frame, the entire wreath can go straight into the compost heap when you're done with it. Stop by the winery this weekend and get some -- a bundle of 5 (enough for 1 wreath) for $1.00. ▪ Website: Vineyard Panoramas On a cool frosted morning in January, my friend Garret Veley came out to the vineyard and took some more panoramic photos as the frost melted and the fog thinned. The photos came out great, with sparkling highlights and softly merging colors. I was up at the farm with volunteer pruner Kimberlee Adams so we're both in several of the images. I also updated the Our Wines page which was several releases out of date, sigh... ▪ Shipping wine soon | |||||||||||||||
