Happy Holidays

      Our Vineyard is resting as we celebrate all we are thankful for this holiday season.  We are thankful for our family, friends and customers who are helping to make our vineyard and winery a reality.  Today we signed the paperwork to finance our new tasting room. We hope the tasting room and winery construction will begin during this holiday season and look forward to sharing all of our new wines with you in the new year.  We will continue to keep everyone updated on the progress of the construction and wine in the final weeks of this year and the upcoming weeks of 2012.  As our list of things to be thankful for continues to grow, let us thank you and wish you a happy holiday season.
Oh yeah, the new wines are tasting fantastic and we have a few new surprises in store for you next year.

A Bad Week to get Free Press

In case you missed it, last week amidst all the news about Penn State, Cassel Vineyards was mentioned in the Patriot News.  There was a very nice article in the entertainment section about the success of new wineries in Central PA.  It's always good to be in the paper about positive things.  In fact, last week our article may have been the only bright spot in the weeks news.  Thank goodness for wine to bring a ray of happiness and a touch of sanity into this cold cruel world. 
As we prepare to close for the winter, we would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support these past two years.  Our venture has been a lot of fun and very gratifying.  Hopefully next year we will have enough wine to keep our doors open so that friends can stop by throughout the holidays to buy wine and spread good cheer.  Keep in touch and watch our home page, facebook and blogspot for the date of our spring grand opening.  It should be a lot of fun when we actually have a nice wine bar to sit and sample wines.  Have a happy Thanksgiving.
http://blog.pennlive.com/life/2011/11/more_wineries_and_vineyards_ca.html

Cassel Vineyards Closing for the Season

We just wanted to thank all our customers and friend for your support this past 2011 season.  We are planning to close our winery next Sat. Nov. 19 th after our usual 1-4:00 hours.  We are sold out of many of our varieties and have only a few cases remaining in most of our others.  Keep in touch via our web site, blogspot and/or facebook pages.
Next Spring, we will reopen in our new wine tasting room.  Have a wonderful holiday season and we look forward to seeing everyone next Spring.

The Vines are Resting

Elliot and I worked in the vines this afternoon to prepare the vineyard for winter.  The weather is perfect and working in the vines gives us a great chance to reflect on the season that is coming to a close.  Lately,  I had several chances to reflect on the things that I have learned this past year.  The vines and the wines have taught us some amazing lessons.  I never thought about learning life lessons at my age.  However, Paul Vigna from the Patriot News called and asked what we had learned this past year as a result of our success.  It was an amazing discovery when I thought about it.  Please take the time to read about the entire interview and our self-discovery.
http://blog.pennlive.com/wine/2011/10/cassels_first_year_in_business_has_come_with_several_important_lessons.html

Cassel Vineyards in Fly Magazine

The Central Pennsylvania Fly Magazine just published a very nice article on Pennsylvania Vineyards and winemaking.  The Article entitled Is Pennsylvania the Next Napa was an excellent article on our winery and our industry in PA in general.  I want to thank Michael McMonagle for his visit and exceptional writing skills.  Perhapse in a later article he will share some of his pictures from the visit.http://www.flymagazine.net/lancaster/lanc_featurestory.htm

Analyzing the Harvest

Yesterday, we pressed and pumped the last of this year's harvest into tanks.  The smell and taste of the new vintage is so enticing (ripe fruits, figs and toffee).  The initial tests and barrel samples seem outstanding.  There are a lot of exceptional fruit flavors and colors coming out of our Chambourcin and Cabernet Franc.  The Vidal Blanc, Chardonnay and Blush all seem to be resting after their initial ferments and all indications are that they will have very nice flavors, aromas and a nice balance of acids.  Our tests in the field all indicated that these were some excellent grapes despite the cool, wet conditions.  Why?  Only the final wine will tell the story but I did stumble across an interesting article that verifies our initial analysis.  If you are interested in why the grapes were such good quality despite the poor weather, read the article paying special note to the section concerning Lancaster County.
http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=92983

The Final Harvest 2011

Here are some pictures of the final harvest of Chambourcin on Sat., October 14th.  The grapes were excellent, and we had a whole lot of friends who showed up to make the work go fast.  It was a beautiful day and the work went quickly.  On Sunday, October 15th we picked the Cabernet Franc and both the Chambourcin and the Cabernet Franc were crushed, destemmed and placed in primary fermentation before the day ended.  It was such a satisfying feeling.  The food, grape juice and wine at the end of each day were a perfect end to a great season.  Now, it is time to wait and see what the grapes that we have put into the fermenter will turn into in the upcoming year.  Our initial tank tasting of the Vidal Blanc and Chambourcin were excellent.  The Chambourcin and Cabernet Franc juices were exceptional with nice sugar and acid and the potential to be some excellent vintages.  We hope everyone is enjoying the past seasons vintage and expect to close around Thanksgiving.   If anyone is interested in ordering wine for the Holidays, we encourage you to contact us within the next month so that we can arrange payment and delivery. 

Thank you for another excellent year.