Not The End But The Beginning

      

      I want to let all my readers know that after 5 years of chronicling the growth and expansion of Cassel Vineyards of Hershey, my blog and the Vineyard as a whole are graduating up to a whole nother level on our new website at...

Casselvineyards.com

      I will continue to write about our events and experiences, but our new website will now offer much, much more including online purchase and shipping beginning around April 1.  If you have not already checked out our new site, please go to Casselvineyards.com and check out our new events calendars, pictures and information.

Ready, Set, Go

     Once again we are preparing to open for a new season here at Cassel Vineyards of Hershey.  As the weather gets warmer, we turn our focus to the chores left undone outside.  This season's pruning began back in January with Vidal Blanc and 2 rows of Chardonnay.  Unfortunately, it then got cold.  Getting cold is something we expect in January and February so we have no complaints about cold weather.  We need cold days and nights to cold stabilize our wines, reduce the disease and insect levels for the upcoming year and to make us stay inside to finish our wines.  We thought the cold would last a few weeks and after we finished our wines we would be able to get out and finish our pruning.  Here we are in the second week of March and still setting record cold temperatures!  This morning's low of 1 set a new record.  The old record of 7 was set back in 1901!  I'd say we have had enough cold weather at this point.  

     Today we spent the morning pruning in frigid temps and snow but spent the afternoon thinking about Spring as we assembled our new deck chairs and tables.  When the sun finally warmed it up enough to go out on the deck, we set up our new tables and chairs on the snow and enjoyed a glass of wine in the sunshine.  Friends Cody and Cole Ebersole joined us trying out the new tables and chairs.  When opportunity knocks, you don't have to ask us twice.  We are really looking forward to our grand Re-opening this Saturday, March 14 at noon.  We will have our new deck and 6 new vintages to release for the first time ever.  It is going to be a whole lot of fun despite the cold weather and snow we have had for the past 3 months!

When the Going Gets Tough

Here is a great big thank you to all our friends who came out this past weekend to help us bottle our nearly 5000 gallons of new wines for our opening day mext Sat. March 14 at 12:00!  

      We now have all our inventiry in bottles and ready for sampling and purchase.  

      The weather was cold and the wind was blowing, but despite the hard work and difficult conditions everyone pitched in and made the load much lighter.  Thanks Dave, Bill & Shawn, Jeff & Kisa, Rick, Sam, Tom, Ann, Becky, Jody, Jim & Liz, Drew, Colton, Lee and Elliot.  Greg, Chris and I could never have done it without all your help.  From bottling, corking, labeling and stacking to food prep and serving, it just made it all so much fun when it was really hard work.  

      Through all of the work amd growing we have done at Cassel Vineyards, the one thing we have continued to value and appreciate is all the great friends we continue to make and share.

Our New Directional Sign

      This week our new sign went up on route 39 at the end of Shetland Dr.  We hope to activate our new website next week complete with our Summer concert calendar, an on-line wine store, and lots of other interesting features.  Our new deck should be done this week and a new patio will be installed as soon as the ground thaws out.  We also hope to attract more local customers this year with our ads in the local papers and on the radio.

   Most people who discover our winery and our wines keep it as their own little secret hide-a-way.  But with our increasing wine production, we would like to get our name our there for everyone to see.  Its going to be a great Summer when it finally gets here so plan on visiting us and enjoying a glass of our fine, estate bottled wines.  Just follow the signs to locate us 3 miles north of Hersheypark.  

New Tasting Card @CasselVineyards

  

      For those friends who like to plan their tasting in advance, I am sharing our new unreleased tasting room card.

We are releasing one new wine this year in our 2014 Cabernet Franc Semi-dry Rose'.  This rose' has a very nice fruit smell and tastes of cherry and rasberry, it is also lightly oaked with a hint on the finish of vanilla and caramel.  We were fortunate to have such an amazing harvest of Cab. Franc that we were able to designate this portion of the harvest to makeing 100 cases of this beautiful Summer sipper.

    Other favorites that have returned after selling out last year are the new 2014 Red Silks Rose' a sweet rose' blend and our 2013 Winners Circle Blend.  Last year these two wines were so popular that they sold out in June long before many of our friends were able to try them.  This year you can plan ahead and stop by early to maximize your tasting experience.

      The other new tasting experiences will be our crowd favorites of 2014 Finish Line Red & Peaches and Honey.  These wines both sold out last season and we needed to make new 2014 editions for immediate release.  If you missed out last year, the new editions will be on the shelf for opening day on March 14.  

     One last wine that will roll out in a new edition will be our 2013 Run 4 the Roses sparkling dry Chambourcin.  This will be one of the first releases of our 2013 dry red vintage.  2013 was a very good year for our Reds as you will see in this wine and our 2013 Winners Circle Blend.  We look forward to seeing you early and often at Cassel Vineyards of Hershey.

Bottles Arrive @ Cassel Vineyards

    The bottles arrived last week at the tasting room in preparation for bottling in two weeks.  This year our production has increased to such a high level that we had to order 4 more pallets of bottles than last year.  The problem is that our production facility has not grown any larger.  So, here we are with no room, lots of glass and a whole lot of wine.  Once we get it all together in the next two weeks there is going to be a whole lot of wine to drink and we will need your help. 

      On March 14 we will be releasing our new 2014 vintage. 

A New Deck for our Winery

A view of our southern slope where we just began excavation for our new deck.  The deck is going in next week if the weather permits.  We plan to have it open for the grand re-opening weekend on Saturday, March 14. Mel Kelly and his crew are excavating and building the entire project to meet our needs.  It has been a great design process working with Mel since we know the quality work that he does. 

    The sunny days are so nice and comfortable sitting in the protection of the building.  In 4 weeks, we invite everyone to come out and enjoy the spring sunshine and our new wines on our new deck.  Very exciting!

  

Wolf Moon Over the Vineyard

    Tonight, the temperature is going down into the single digits.  The sun was setting cold and distant while the moon rose over the vineyards. Ice has formed on the crust of snow and all the light made the vineyard glow softly as I prepared to take this picture.  

    The late January full moon was know by native Americans as the wolf moon because of the lean, hungry weeks leading up to spring.  The sound of a wolf howling would have sounded perfect in the background. 

     As the days warm and the snow melts, these lean, cold days will become distant memories.  Sitting on the deck with a glass of wine in my hand and the sun in my face, I will listen for the howl of a wolf and think of the winter long gone.

Shipping at Cassel Vineyards

    Things are changing at Cassel Vineyards for the coming year!  We are going to be able to ship our wines to our friends and family for the first time!  We have our boxes and a new web store that we plan to roll out on the first week of March.  It should be very exciting as our friends who keep asking for us to ship our wines, will finally be able to place an order.  We just packed up 2 cases of wine for our PWA (PA Winery Association) wine competition coming up this April.  The boxes you see in these pictures are the boxes we plan to use instead of the old cardboard inserts.  These boxes can handle 12 bottles and are guaranteed to protect the bottles from any breakage.  It should be fun to hear what all our friends and family think of our new system of wine distribution.  Check back in early March and place an order.

Bench Trials

 

    We worked all last week mixing and tasting our final bench trials before we blended our final wines for 2015.  The work was very gratifying as we sampled 15 - 20 samples of each of our wines at various sweetness levels and proportions.  The final blends were very similar to our wines from last year so there were no really big surprises.  The most pleasant surprise was in the quality of our red wines from the 2013 vintage year.  We really liked the flavores and maturity of the grapes from that Fall's harvest!

     If you remember 2013 it was a very early spring with the grapes breaking their buds in mid-March followed by a wet May and June.  The rain let up in mid-July and gave way to a very warm, dry August - October.  We were able to pick all of our grapes at the peak of their flavores and the new wines are really showing excellent character.  We will be entering the wines in several shows so it will be interesting to see if other people like it as much as we do.

And The Seasons Change

      When you work in our vineyard, it is impossible to overlook the change of seasons.  Today we experienced our first real snow of the season.  Although our pruning is well underway, we are also busy making our wine in the production facility.  It is so misleading today when you go to the grocery store and see bananas, pineapples and tomatoes even as the snow flies in the vineyard.  Here at Cassel Vineyards we keep our hand on the pulse of the changing seasons.  It's exciting to make our wine from the grapes which we grow in the vineyard.  As the winter passes and our wine rests and tranform in the tanks we choose to let the time and changing seasons impart their changes to the wine.  There are so many modern products which winemakers use to speed things up and transform their wines and hurry them into the bottle so they can maximize the turnover and profits from their product.  

      I can't imagine why anyone would want to change the seasons by hurrying their wines out of the tanks and into the bottle.  The weather will change soon enough, and so will our wines.  Time is our friend and the changing seasons just continue to make our wines better.  The days are getting longer and this Spring will bring our wines to bottle.  Soon, our new 2014 vintage will be available in our fruit and white and rose' wines in the tasting room.  The Summer will bring our concerts and long warm days to sip cool rose' or crisp white as we prune and prepare for our next harvest.  The seasons change and we here at Cassel Vineyards choose to live within the seasons and not hurry them along. Come out and enjoy us on March 14 as we watch the seasons change to Spring in our vineyards.

1st Annual Hummelstown Winter Fling this Fri.

      This Friday, Jan. 24 from 7-10 on the Hummelstown  Boro square,  join us for the first winter carnival ever held in Hummelstown.  We are excited to take this opportunity to give samples of our Farm Show Award winning wines and our warm, spiced wines.  Its going to be a whole lot of fun with food, drinks, entertainment and music.  We are happy for this opportunity to give and sell our wines to our local friends and neighbors at a time when we would normally be closed for the winter.  Its going to bea great time so dress warm and bring the family out to join us.  See you on the square!

A Bit of History from Cassel Vineyards

      I hear the question from our friends, guests and customers all the time, What made you want to to open a winery?  I tell them the truth, my Father said the next generation would need to find a way to support the farm and pay the taxes.  We planted some grapes because we didn't want to continue baling hay and shoveling manure.  Our sister is continuing to raise and race the horses with her family.  

   Another inevitable question, why grapes and wine?  And my mind always goes back to my gold medal award in the 2006 PA Farm Show.  It was 2 years before we planted our first vines and Chris and Greg were making some very good grape wines and I was making my peach meade.  That year the judges really liked our wines at the Lebanon Fair and the PA Farm Show so we were feeling pretty confident.  Little did we know that fair judges and actual wine judges are looking for two different things.

    After 10 years we are starting to get it all figured out.  In other words, the fair judges liked wine that tasted good and drank what the people like.  Wine judges need wine to look, smell and taste refined.  Those are two very different things.  Based on this years results, we seem to have it figured out.  6 wines and 5 medals shows we've come a long way!

Closed for the Season

      Thank you to all our friends and customers who continue to make our adventure in winemaking such a great experience.  At the end of the day, we again increased our sales by almost 1000 gallons this past season.  What is amazing is that we used to say we increased our sales by 100% for our first 4 years!  We started with around 350 gallons and 4 varieties that first year; Chanbourcin, Concord, Blush (Stueben), and Niagara.  Now, 6 years later we can no longer sustain triple digit growth while working our day jobs as teachers.  However, keeping all our customers returning and increasing our growth by 20-30% is just as gratifying.  

      Its been another great year and we look forward to new and exciting things in the upcoming year.  Things like our New deck, a new website, online sales and wine shipping and a gradual expansion of our vineyard so that we can contunue to meet the increased demand without compromising our commitment to grow and produce our own estate wines.  If you have never tried our wines, you'll understand why we want to control our own level of quality by growing our own grapes. In just a few months our fresh, new 2014 vintage will be released and we will be able to ship almost anywhere.  Now we can take it up to the next level.  First, national then the world!

A New Year and Some New News

    For our friends out-of-town who don't read the official Harrisburg on-line news on Pennlive, there was a very nice article today which started our New Year off with some interesting news for our friends and customers.

Read it in the link below.

http://blog.pennlive.com/wine/2014/12/cassel_vineyards_of_hershey_expansion_plans_include_new_deck_vines.html?hootPostID=ccb51a1dde721fc9d32463c65e4bc1b0