God Made a Farmer

God Made A Farmer  (click to watch video)

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say,'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours." So God made the farmer.God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb p...


I was sent this link by our PA Wine Growers representative in Harrisburg and the story goes that Dodge created the add for the Super Bowl and partnered with the National Future Farmers of America to raise 1 million dollars to combat world hunger.  Simply by watching this video and spreading the word for the American Farmer and Dodge Trucks.  You can never be sure if what you read on the Internet is true but even if it is not its still a great 3 minute video.  I hope you enjoy it and can pass it on to a friend or two.  Then stop by a farm and buy a Dodge Ram or a bottle of Cassel Vineyards Wine.

Bottling for 2013

The following pictures were taken this past weekend at the winery as we began preparing for our upcoming season.  We began at 7:30 as we planned to complete bottling of two of our varieties.  By 9 we were bottling our Cabernet Franc and finished 45 cases by 11:30.  We took a lunch break and enjoyed some of the new wine with pulled pork sandwiches.  By 12:30 we were back at it bottling a batch of this spring's strawberry wine.  The new wine tasted just like fresh strawberries straight from the garden.  Chris and Greg have once again created some of the best fruit wine I have ever tasted.  Next week we plan to bottle the Peaches and Honey and Chambourcin.  We are starting to look forward to what promises to be a very delicious vintage that we will begin sharing through several special events in the upcoming weeks.  I plan to post these events on this blog, Facebook at Cassel Vineyards, Twitter following craig@casselvineyards #casselvineyards and on my Instagram.  Thank you for following me however you get the information.

Transferring Reds to Barrels

Tonight we worked to transfer all of our reds to barrels.  Wow, our inventory of french oak barrels has really expanded.  We went from 4 barrels 3 years ago to 15 barrels this year and we still have 2 barrels worth of Chambourcin that we don't have enough oak barrels for.  We had a lot of fun working in the winery today. Greg got a little carried away when he tied himself to the stainless steel tank.   I was not going to let him loose, but I thought better of leaving him tied to a tank all night.  Tomorrow we will begin sweetening and bottling our. Fruit wines.

Pruning While the Weather Is Warm

We are trying to get a handle on the pruning while we have the warm mid-winter thaw.  It has been beautiful working in the fields while the temperature has been in the 50s.  However, things are going to change.  Here you can see our pruning crew.  The boys are really getting good at the work and enjoy making a little spending money.  Chris and I agree that listening to their friendly banter in the field is one of the funniest things we have ever heard.  They just go on for hours non-stop about girls, wrestling, hunting, fishing, one another or things they have heard or said.  Who needs Facebook we hear it all through the grapevine!  Now we know where the lyrics of that song originated.  It must have been someone who pruned grapes!  Stop out and listen to the latest news if you would like to help us prune.  We have plenty of extra clippers.

Cold Weather Sets In

Here are the vines before and after we pruned last week.

As the weather cools down and the ice and snow begin to build up there is very little desire to rush out and finish the job.  As you can see we had some freezing rain today that left a coating of ice on everything.  Next Monday the boys Elliot, Colton and Lee plan to prune the Chardonnay.  We just finished the Vidal Blanc pruning and when the weather moderates we will work on the Chambourcin and Cab Franc.  I will take some more pictures as we make more progress.

Testing wine for Free SO2

Pictured above is our new aeration/oxidation apparatus for testing free SO2 in our wine samples.  As the fermentation progresses and we gain more knowledge about what we want our wines to express in their final form, it is becoming more and more important to understand the complete biochemical picture.  The interesting thing about wine making is that the more you know, the more you find out you don't know.  When we started out 18 years ago we just kept everything clean and hoped that our product would be good 8-12 months later.  In fact, the production facilities that the pre-packaged grape juice came from took care of all the pH and Total Acidity balancing and all we needed to do was add the yeast, rack the wine and celebrate the end product.  Now, even before the grapes come from the field we need to determining Brix and pH.  The must needs to be properly balanced with nutrients, yeast and SO2 and any imbalance can be a 500 gallon mistake.
One of the biggest challenges we are trying to meet is the proper preservation of our wines without adding too much of the sulfite which many people find offensive.  Many wineries just max the amount of Sulfite (SO2) up to the legal limit of 200 ppm.  However, with many drinkers finding Sulfites can cause them to have adverse reactions, we try to keep our SO2 levels as low as possible without running the risk of spoilage.  Since our wines are meant to be consumed fresh from the field this is a very achievable goal but the 10 degree variations in our SO2 measurements  using the quick and easy sulfite titrets left a lot of room for error.  Now our new apparatus promises to give us quick and very accurate readings in 10 minutes.  Most of the big wineries send their samples to labs to get their results but here at Cassel Vineyards we enjoy the science behind the results.  Its something about being a part of the process and having total control over as much of the production as possible.  Not only does it keep our costs low, but it also keeps our quality high. 

New Year 2013

Happy new year from Cassel Vineyards!  With the new year, we look ahead to our opening date in March.  With our bottling and labeling done by the first week of March, we should be able to reopened mid March with our new 20012 vintage.  I have just returned from the a trip to Canada where I purchased 7 new French oak barrels to begin aging this years Cabernet Franc and Chambourcin.  From that we will be making our popular Chocolate Port.  Whatever you are looking forward to, we look forward to serving it again on March 16.