Here We Go Again

      We took advantage of the great winter? Weather today to begin pruning our vines.  Here are Drew, Zach and David starting on the Vidal Blanc.  With the sunshine and temperatures in the 50's we decided to get started a few days early.  It was just nice to work without being cold in some part of our body.  The boys are all familiar with our pruning procedureso we made good time and finished half of our Vidalby the end of the first day.  Hopefully, the weather will remain nice for tomorrow as we are planning to finish up the Vidal and then begin on the Chardonnay.  If you are reading this and would like to help, we plan to keep on pruning throughout the holiday break.   Anyone is welcome to join is and the lessons are free!

Feature Photographs

      Today Todd Espenshade and I worked in the winery today taking pictures for our new web site.  When we were done he shared a project that he did for his graphics design class with me.  It is a book of his photographs that he used to tell a story.  As you can see by my photos of his pictures, the subject was Cassel Vineyards.  These pictures do not do the book justice because the actual photographs are stunning.  We hope to use his pictures in a video story that you can see on our new web site.  Here are just a few of his photos.  

      

Holiday Wine Blending Party

       On Saturday, Dec. 20 we held our Holiday Blending Party for Cassel Vineyards of Hershey.  At the party, we were trying to establish what % of this year's wines we needed in each of our new blends.  We also worked on our sweetness levels for the two new wines which may appear on shelves this coming year.  

      To call it work is a gross exageration of that word.  We drank 4 samples each of 3 wines mixed in different proportions and sweetened to different levels.  When we were done we were all very happy.  The results will appear in our tasting room next March and include a new blend of our Winners Circle Red (dry Chambourcin/Cab. Franc), a semi-dry Cab. Franc Rose', and a semi-sweet Chambourcin Blend.

  The party was a complete success and the wine was a fun diversion.  I wish work could always be this fun.  The picture shows our many happy "workers" at the blending party.

New Friends from New York Renewed

    This past weekend, we had a visit from our friends  Joseph and Christine from Brooklyn, NY.  We met them back in The spring when they stopped in for their initial visit. They were in town for the Farm Show Auto Auction in Harrisburg and enjoyed their visit to the winery.  After they returned home and finished their wine, they found out in our newsletter that we were closing for the winter. It was so nice to see them again and reconnecting.  Greg had a nice time catching up and listening to their reason for returning.  The two friends of ours returned to pick up a case of our Chocolate Port and some other essential gifts for their friends and family.

     This winter we are working on updating our Website so that friends who don't want to travel all over the east coast to get our wine won't have to.  We certainly love reconnecting and visiting with our friends both old and new.  Soon, we should be able to ship to our friends and family everywhere.  Stay in touch and check up our new website in the near future.

Chocolate and Wine for Christmas

     We received a gift of some premium Hershey chocolates this week and decided to spread them among our guests to see if we could find any perfect pairings.  On our first day we had quite a few guests who tried and enjoyed the pairing.  The crowd favorite was our Chambourcin with the 74% cacao with cranberries, cherries and vanilla.  The Dark chocolate pomgranite and acai berries were also very easy to match with our dry reds and sweeter whites.  Everyone had fun and the chocolate was a nice addition to a cold rainy afternoon.  Stop by tomorrow if you would like some samples.

Transfer Night in the Winery

      Spent all evening in the winery transfering wine.  500 gallons of Vidal Blanc, 500 gallons of Cab Franc and 250 gallons of our new Cab Franc Rose'.  Everything looks great, smell lovely and most importantly tastes amazing.  The flavors this vintage are very interesting.  Lots of berry, cherry and complex smellls of currants and fruit preserves.  There is a long way to go with layers of oak and toasted vanilla still to develop but the potential is there for our best vintage ever!  Stay tuned and you can taste it yourself in 2016.