It's been a long winter, but the wines in the cellar are finally nearing the bottling stage. There are finishing touches that need to be done to the wines. We will be doing an initial filtering and add sugar to our sweeter wines, after which we will do a final cold stabilization. The wines went through cold stabilization individually, right after fermentation, however blending the wines together, or adding sugar, will cause a change in pH which may create a need to cold stabilize again. We will also be doing checks to insure the wines are both cold stable and protein stable. Any last minute adjustments will be made based on those tests and then we will be able to do final sterile filtering and bottling.

The bad news, as many of you know, is that we have sold out of several of our wines. Nimble Hill Red, Chardonnay, Vidal/Riesling, Niagara, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon are all sold out. The good news is that we have increased production in our 2007 vintage and will have a larger quatity of each of these wines when we bottle in the spring. Last year we produced slightly over 3,100 gallons of wine. As I write this, we have 6,100 gallons in tanks and barrels at the winery. About 600 gallons of this wine is being made for Maiolatesi winery which experienced a fire this past year and is currently without a winemaking facility. All in all, after racking, filtering and sampling losses, we will end up with over 5,000 gallons of wine which will help to avoid shortages next year. Thank you all for your support as it is you, our customers, who have made our sales such a success. Here's wishing each of you happiness in the New Year.