Yes it is a little hot out today. All I can say is that this is good grape growing weather. Humidity we don't need, but hot is good. The vineyard tours are now getting into prime time. Soon the grapes should be going into verasion.
Quoted from my google search, "Véraison is a viticulture (grape-growing) term meaning "the onset of ripening". It is originally French, but has been adopted into English use. The official definition of veraison is "change of color of the grape berries.""
Normally our Valiant grape, used to make our wine called Nordsuss, is our first variety to start the color change. The white grapes also change color going from green to a whitish tone and at this time the flavor compounds and sugars in the grapes are developing.
Harvest could well be started in about a month. If you'd like to be part of a harvest party follow the instructions below. If this is new to you, being a harvest volunteer means working about 4 hour in the vineyard cutting off clusters of grapes into pails, those pails then dump into bins right in the vineyard, we then haul the bins to the winery for processing. Usually we start about 8:30 in the morning complete by 12:30 then we bring in a very nice meal, all the wine you'd like to drink, and then send bottles of wine home with you. I don't have specific date now, to register I need your name, a good phone number, days of the week when you can come, and how many people in your group.
Some of the harvest is on weekday and some on weekends, the variable is how the when the grapes are a peak flavor to harvest. All of our contact is via phone voice, not texting, therefore a good phone number is important.
email to donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "2015 Harvest Party!"
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Last weekend at our festival Iza, our 8 yr. old granddaughter, did quite well on her lemonade stand. She sold out all except for the little bit at the very bottom of her glass container. Do you remember when you were a kid how on an ice-cream on a stick
after the ice-cream is gone how one last lick of the stick seems to be attractive? Well I must still be a kid. Late Saturday after Iza was gone playing I though I'd test her lemonade and just the bottom of the jar was left and almost no cups. Tilting the jar I got about half a cup out, walked away and took a sip. Not bad until I saw that someone had already used this cup and stuck their chewing gum in bottom of it, yuck Gross!
Iza did well enough on her lemonade stand that with this money
and her gumball machine money she bought a Barbie house. I think that it is good to see her managing to buy something using her own money. I wonder if the gum in the bottom of the glass came from Iza's gumball machine. Does it then mean that someone helped Iza twice? (It still was gross to see.)
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This week I received a letter in the mail with return address that didn't look familiar and seemed to have the feel of something out of ordinary. Upon opening it I was correct, it was a thank you note from visitors earlier this summer. Early on a Saturday morning I was cleaning out the grease trap in the dish-room. I don't like doing this on a day when customers are coming, but the drain was blocked and I had to do it. Consequently I had all the door open and the air ex-changer running to get the smell out. This is not a fun job, but when you are CEO you get to do everything.
About 1 1/2 hours prior to opening time, I was just finishing up on my project, when a car pulls into the lot with two couples from the metro area. They had been on the road a while driving out especially to visit our winery. They then realized that they had miss read our opening time on line. What does a good host do? Open the bar, no problem.
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Sometimes life is life. I received a very sad phone message this week. One of our winery volunteers and avid advocate for our wine, especially MN Crisp Cider, died.
His name is Ken Thorseth, his wife is Jane. Ken and Jane are from Sauk Rapids. Ken helped us quite a lot on bottling the past year. He was a joy to work with and he enjoyed MN Crisp by the keg, I think I sold him his last keg. One just doesn't know how long we'll be on the earth, enjoy while you can. Our condolences to Jane and we'll remember her and Ken in our prayers.
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Last week's trivia question was, "What did this group paint?"
The correct answer was a tree and the winner isAlice Karg. Congratulations on an easy bottle of wine.
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