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Perennial Vintners | In this issue: |
| ▪ Schedule - open every weekend |
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| ▪ Holidays White Sale |
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| ▪ New releases | ||
| Newsletter -- Oct-2014 | ▪ iPhone earbuds | |
| (Click
here to view in HTML on
website) |
▪ Vineyard - harvest wrap up of 2014 |
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| http://www.PerennialVintners.com/ | ▪ Internships & volunteer opportunities |
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(Click on any image below to go to website with more information/larger image/etc.)
▪ Schedule - open every weekend
Mike is at the winery with the signs out on the road every weekend 11am-5pm. However, I'm at the winery pretty much 7 days a week. If you're in the neighborhood, call/txt my cell - if I'm around, I'd be happy to greet you and give you the private vineyard tour, or just stop in for a minute to buy wine! If you drop by and I'm not too busy, perhaps we can simply enjoy a glass of wine and enjoy some conversation - we really do have an open door policy - just call/txt to make sure I'm here...
▪ Holidays White Sale
We've
dropped the price of several of our white wines. They're all still
doing great, but are likely to begin to fade in less than a year so we
want to make sure people have time to enjoy them. Our Dry Orange Muscat is now $11, the Isletage 2012 is now $12, and the Madeleine Angevine is now $14. If you buy a case
(12 bottles), with our 10% discount, these wines are about $10/bottle!
▪ New releases
The 2013 Rose' is made from 100% Cabernet Franc grapes from the Yakima Valley AVA. It's delicate and fragrant like the 2011 release, and very versatile - this is my favorite for sipping while making dinner, nibbling ingredients and sipping.
The 2013 Lemberger is now also available. Very similar to the 2011, the grapes are again from Kiona Vineyard on Red Mountain. It's fruit-filled unoaked flavors are perfect with simple comfort foods like lasagne. This is already selling well, so don't wait!
▪ iPhone earbuds
Now
that you've got your new iPhone 6... Do you use the earbuds that came
with it? If you've visited the winery you've probably seen me with
earbuds hanging from my shirt. I use these when I'm working in the
vineyard, working in the winery, when I'm driving - most all the time.
With this much use they always eventually fall apart - I get maybe 3
months out of a pair. I'll give you $5 cash, or $10 off any wine
purchase for your unused iPhone earbuds. I'd be willing to bet that
your old iPhone 5 box is still sitting with it's earbuds unused too...
I'll take 'em! (Has to be iPhone - from
iPhone 3 onwards - iPad, iPod, Nano won't work as they do not have the
microphone.) You can swing by the winery with them, or just drop them
in a padded envelope and mail them to me and I'll send you $5 for each,
plus your mailing costs.
▪ Vineyard - harvest wrap up of 2014
On Bainbridge we've harvested our estate Siegerrebe, Maldeleine
Angevine, Mueller Thurgau and our signature wine Melon de Bourgogne. From eastern WA we've brought in
Lemberger and Syrah. Special thanks to the folks on our helpers email list who put up with my last minute pleas for harvesting help, and especially to those who came out and harvested!In a few words, this was by far the best harvest the Puget Sound AVA has ever had! The Powdery Mildew and Botrytis were less overwhelming this year and we kept ahead of them. You may have noticed the weather station we have in the vineyard (it's data is always available on our website) - Mike has implemented a website that manages spray schedules according to weather conditions. This was undoubtedly the reason we were completely successful in managing sprays.
The yellowjackets, wasps and honeybees were an early harvest problem, but we mostly managed to get that under control. A couple of months ago, I couldn't tell the difference between a honeybee, yellowjacket, or the bald faced hornet. One of the joys of being a farmer is that there's always something new - I now can tell these guys apart, and understand more about dealing with them on a larger scale. Most importantly I now know what to do preventatively in future years.
The birds were a problem as well, but that's nothing new. As of last year, we now do fruit zone netting, so birds only get a small percentage of the harvest.
Due to the wonderful weather we had starting early, and persisting throughout the year, we had a huge harvest. You might want to glance at the annual Growing Degree Day curve from our weather station and compare it to previous years, we were much higher in heat accumulation than any previous year. I harvested about 3 times what I expected - I had to borrow a tank to fit all the extra Melon de Bourgogne in!
As mentioned above, we maintain
an email list for volunteers and interns. Whenever I'll be
doing something that people might be interested in learning about, or
when I just have a job that takes several bodies I send an email to
this list. You can of course unsubscribe at your
whim.
All it takes to be an intern, is to commit to
one afternoon per month, starting in March, for a year. With
this schedule, you can experience most every task involved in being a
small scale vineyard and
winery.
Upcoming winery tasks
include:
Fermentation tasks - right
now
Run the tasting room on
occasion
Racking wine
Filtering wine
Applying labels to
bottles
Upcoming vineyard tasks
include:
Rolling up the bird netting - this job is only a few hrs if I have help
Rolling up the bird netting - this job is only a few hrs if I have help
Digging out old
grapevines (removing Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris)
Planting new grapevines (Zwiegelt, Melon de Bourgogne,
Siegerrebe)
Pruning Potting up
cuttings for new plants
We'll be removing some
trees - brush clearing