Wine & Vine Tales by James

15 month round up!

2009-05-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

A lot has gone on since the last post. 2008 was a very succesful growing year and we made some wonderful wines. Our La Crescent took a gold medal at the Hudson Valley Wine Competition. The Three Red Kings, Frontenac Gris, & St. Pepin all took medals at the Hudson Valley & Finger Lakes Internation wine competition.

2009 is very exciting for us because it will be our first harvest of red varietal Marquette. We were a bit dubious about the hype surrounding this new release from the University of Minnesota, until we got the chance to taste one recently from a Finger Lakes winery. Wow! As far as a red wine goes this new varietal, a hybrid with parents Pinot Noir and Frontenac, sets a new standard for vineyards like ours, where it is too cold in the winter for other varietals to survive. We will be leaving the very best clusters of Marquette, Frontenac and Leon Millot to bring to our customers "Winjolais Reserve" sometime around Spring 2011. It is a slow path in the wine business and for us this release will have taken 11 years of research, growing and wine making to bring to market.

Last years customer harvest event was a blast and we will be doing it again in 2009. If you are interested send us an email. This year there will be a picking of the grapes for white wine the first Saturday in October, and the reds later as late as possible before a freeze. We do a morning picking followed by a catered wine lunch, an afternoon picking. Then for those that can make it a wine dinner at The Chalet Fondue restaurant. People have asked "what is the cost?" Are you kidding? Sure we could charge, but that isn`t our style at Windham Vineyards. Instead pickers get a good lunch and dinner, and wine purchase voucher for the tasting room, and enjoy a unique experience in the vineyard at a great time of the year. Join us for the 2009 grape picking event.

Area residents can now find our wines in all the towns near the winery. Check our homepage for a list of participating retailers.

Head on over to see us at the tasting room and deck bar this summer and fall!

Getting ready to release the new wines !

2008-01-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

A shameful 4 months since the last entry! The bumper harvest came in succesfully. It looked like a lot of fruit hanging in the vineyard but was quite a shock at how rapidly the harvest bins filled in this our first large scale harvest. We cannot put into words our thanks to friends who rolled up their sleeves and got into the vineyard and did the work into the dark with tractor headlights a blazzin ! From the grapes we grew, and the grapes we bought from our growers on Long Island and the Finger Lakes, wow, what a vintage - it just does not get any better than 2007 ! Now we look forward to customers new and old enjoying the results. Of note is the outstanding unoaked Chardonnay which releases in May 2007. We had the chance to visit the Burgundy region of France in December, and was astounded at how similar our unoaked Chardonnay compares to the Grand Crus wines of the Chablis appellation of Burgundy. We took samples of our Chardonnay for our French comrades to try, who were suprised and respectful at our results. We left with great memories of our trip, and respect for the grapegrowers and winemakers of Burgundy who have been hand crafting wines in an admirable and pure tradition for centuries. There are too many new releases to go into detail on. Suffice to say get down to the tasting room ! Round 1 of the new releases starts Jan 15th 2008 with the release of Estate Grown "Reflections", Estate Grown "Mount Zoar Rose", Riesling and Mountain Muscat. To follow in April will be the to die for Unoaked Chardonnay, North & South Mountain, The Three Red Kings, Red Falls Reserve, Multi Berry Infusion. Our new complex lightly oaked Chardonnay will follow mid summer. The vineyard is now calm and sleeping, and we have been busy pruning taking advantage of the snowless winter and occasionally mild temperatures. Our vines are being re-trained to a lower wire to allow better sun positioning and a higher canopy for all the leaves. At last after 6 years of very hard work it is now possible to look back over the vineyard and winery building and savor the start up work behind us and look forward to converting the fruits of each season ahead into delicious wines for our tasting room friends.

Bumper harvest expected

2007-09-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

We have had a hot and long summer and have a heavy crop of grapes which we hope to begin harvesting the third week of September. Our bird netting is working well keeping the hungry critters away, and the deer fence we installed in the spring has kept them out so far with no intrusions. We are excited to release our new red wine "The Three Red Kings". Lots of people have asked us why we chose this name. Quite simply Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc are planted all over the world and produce the signature red wine flavor that most drinkers enjoy. We consider our new release a "royal" blend of these three kings of the grape world and thus named it accordingly !

The final story up to date !!!

2007-01-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

With the worst behind us (hopefully!) we opened our tasting room doors in April 2005. They say build it and they will come, and we are happy to say that they did. Looking back on our first year we really did not have the first clue what we were doing in the tasting room. That all said we got through and the customers that mattered most were very kind in consideration of our overall state of panic! If their is one lesson for wannabee winery owners it is that you cannot read about how to do it in a book or practice for six months on family. Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down. Since opening we have expanded quite rapidly. In the summer of 2006 poor old Stevey from the U.K. came back and together we added a large extension to the original small start up building. In the late summer of 2006 we added a deck on the rear of the tasting room overlooking the vineyard, so customers could sit down and savor the wine tasting. Within a few weeks we found it necessary to double the size of the deck. Our deck now seats 34 people at elegant european tables and chairs with sun umbrellas. The work list continued in 2006 with well drilling and continued vine plantings. We doubled the number of stainless steel wine tanks just prior to our 2006 harvest. Our wine labels were completely redesigned and now almost all our wines are in the new label which we are very proud of having done extensive research to come up with an identity that reflects our mountaintop location. 2007 will see vine plantings continue, and we will add a concrete crush pad on the end of the building to house our new bladder press and crusher/stemmer. Beyond that our focus will be on making the best wine we can every year for a reasonable price, outstanding customer service in the tasting room and on the new vineyard deck with outdoor bar, and reinforcing our brand in the regional liquor stores we supply. We now look forward to an extended period of normality and plan on possibly buying a rocking chair or two to sit in !!!

You are now officially up to date with our progress so far! From here on there will be a weekly posting that will keep you informed with activities in the vineyard, and wine progress in the tanks and tasting notes on the soon to be releases from the 2006 harvest (which although still quite young, are tasting quite astounding in quality)

Warning - Unoaked Chardonnay lovers brace yourselves for our 2006 Unoaked Chardonnay !!

Pictures above from top to bottom (1) Cousin stevey having a divy (2) The expansion from the inside (3) A good customer & neighbour & excellent grape picker Paula picking 2006 grapes (4) One of our clear channel billboards in the area (5) The expansion before the siding is applied

The story so far part 5

2007-01-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

The wineries opening came to a halt a few days before launch with the sudden loss of "Father Bateman" well before his due date. For those that new him they will think of his great sense of humour and work ethic. He had a great art of not taking life too seriously and would delight in bringing down those that got to think of themselves as being more important than other people. The prized bafoon will be missed by all that new him !!!

The story so far part 4

2007-01-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

Stevey went home a very tired man, and over the winter of 2004/2005 the interior of the tasting room was done by myself. Oak floors and white pine interior walls and ceilings were selected to give a high class yet rustic feel to the tasting room. To go into the one year battle with federal and state paperwork would need another blog. The paperwork process if nothing else weens away all but those totally committed to entering the wine business. To be fair the State Liquor Authority personnel that I dealt with were notably efficient and helpful within the system under which they have to operate. The best way to describe this pre-launch stage of the winery was like trying to cook 20 meals on 20 stoves in 20 different houses across town. As we approached April of 2005 we got ready to open the doors for the first time.........

The story so far Part 3

2007-01-04T18:21:00.000-08:00

As the vine planting craziness continued, with Val now getting very worried and trying to put me into a vine growing rehab. clinic, it became increasingly obvious Val was not wanted by her employer and was being forced out with some very unpleasant tactics. For me it was a frustrating case of being fully qualified as a commercial pilot, having flown 1,200 hours in my own Cessna 150 in all kinds of crazy weather up and down the corridor from Albany to Newark, on top of completing all the commercial exams and flight tests, to be totally unable to find any kind of entry level opportunity in any kind of plane, even one with a dodgy engine and loose bolts, which at the time would have been quite acceptable. A new plan was needed. The vines were growing just fine, and everyone that tasted our wines seemed to want to buy a bottle or two. I think that was the seed that lead us to jump off the sinking employment ship and commence the process of constructing a building and starting a vineyard and winery. Myself and cousin Stevey from the UK worked like crazy and put up the winery in 10 days. I think the beer and constant stream of British jokes back and forth helped !

The story so far Part 2

2007-01-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

It may sound bizarre at todays prices in Windham for land parcels, but when we bought the land parcel where the winery now sits, it was on a whim and a credit card. It was not all that long ago when land was very affordable up here. I think the general idea at first was to build a house on the land. But I think for me was that the land would feed my vine planting addiction for a few more years to come. And so it began with four rows of vines. We accidentaly stumbled upon another piece of land with an old trailer on it that the realtor could not sell for love nor money. So on another whim and another credit card came plot #2, which is still under vineyard development

The story so far, Part 1

2007-01-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

I will attempt without boring the trousers off the readers to bring the vineyard and winery story up to date in a few parts over the next couple of days.

What is now Windham Vineyard and Winery is more a grape growing hobby that got out of control. Very out of control. Val had initial assurances that the 35 vines in the backyard at Hensonville would be more than sufficient for the purposes of sitting outside in the summer and supping some wine whilst lovingly admiring grape bunches hanging........

The planting vines addiction got quite out of control, and quite soon the backyard was a vineyard. Neighbours Brian and Karen on the one side seemed quite happy to view a vineyard from their deck. Hank came around too I think. One year he commented "I hear that vineyards attract a lot of wasps and insects" My reply "Thats good for you then Hank they will all be over at our place" seemed to calm him down ! We decided to sell our first house & vineyard. It is now owned by Windham Vineyard customer Todd. When the realtor told him she had a house listed with a vineyard he bought it without going inside!

Time to move on for us and the story continues when we accidentaly stumbled upon what is now Windham Vineyard and Wineries main site ........

What is our blog for?

2007-01-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Windham Vineyards. That is me, James, with the yellow bib I stole off a lobster fisherman (pushed him over actually) and that is Val next to me getting yellow sunburn off my pants. Together we are Windham Vineyard & Winery. For all those valued customers out their that did not get their question properly answered about pruning a concord vine that grows on the wall, or a technical question about one of our wines, because we were running around like crazy dogs serving people in the tasting room, then this blog is for you. In brief a chance for us to tell our vineyard and winery story as it seasonally unfolds and to make our regular customers part of our vineyard and winery experience as the seasons and years fold by, and for customers to communicate with us like the friends they are. First and foremost, we are not a winery corporation, the sign may say Windham Vineyard and Winery but we are James & Valerie and when you buy our wine you are drinking the product of our vineyard and winery passion. We aim to be the essence of a small local winery. Come in a stranger and leave a friend. Preferably leave a friend with a case of wine under your arm !!!