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.