Grace Hill Winery

Talk about a week of ups and downs...

First the good news! We had a great time at our open house on Saturday. The crowd was big enough that we felt like we were really open, but small enough that we weren't intimidated trying to remember how to use the cash register. We actually sold our first bottles of wine that day, so after 5 years of planning and work, we now have revenue. (Not profit, of course, but revenue never the less.) It was extremely exciting. We are now officially open by appointment, and would love to have people call us and come in for a tasting. We won't have regular hours until the fall, when we have red wines available too.

The other big pleasure is seeing the grapes grow. The vineyard looks absolutely beautiful this week. The grapes look like the real thing, though hard and unripe. They still have a ways to go.

Which leads to the bad news.

We were out in the vineyard last evening, as we are most evenings, and found we have fungus in some of the grapes. This has been such a wet year that we are even more vulnerable than usual. We have tried to be proactive with our spray regimen and our vineyard management, but problems have crept up anyway. We try to be minimalist with our spray regimen, but haven't found any way to completely avoid spraying for fungus. It's very discouraging when we have worked so hard to keep the grapes doing well. However, we think we caught it quickly enough that we won't lose too many grapes. We try to be philosophical and take the approach of our friend and farmer Willard, who tells us when we complain about the weather not cooperating, "That's farming."