Tuesday, September 30, 2008




We are pressing grapes tonight, but I had to come back to the house to get this post going. If I miss tonight, I miss September. Hard to believe, but true.


Harvest is over. We finished last weekend, with the help of lots of friends and family. We are so grateful to Heather, Adam, Glen, and Mary. Tom and Chris and Ray and Janet. Steve and his son Alex. Nancy and Ann. And as always, we count on Pat. Thank you all, so, so much! And Jeff- did we mention that we never could have done this harvest without you?


We came close to missing this last harvest. We somehow had the bright idea to travel to California wine country last week to see how things are done out there. (We figured harvest would be long since done, and Jeff could keep an eye on things.) Dave was concentrating on the winemaking and I was taking copious notes on the tasting rooms. We had a great time, made a side trip to the ocean, and tried lots of good wines. But at the end we were eager to get back to our own grapes, still on the vines. However, our flight home got diverted by a thunderstorm, so we missed a connection and ended up flying to Tulsa and then driving home to Wichita from there. We got in at 2:30 am, then got to get up for that last harvest. We made it, (caffeine helped) and had a really good day. Sunday was rough, though!


The processing goes on, and there is always more work to be done, but we are making progress. Most of the wine is in tanks or barrels, though we still have one lot of Cabernet Franc fermenting.
The wines from last year taste really good right now, and we are working on getting the tasting room ready for more regular hours. We will be open this Saturday, October 4th, from 11-5. Come on out!