Spring is here and we are busy again!

Things have started to get busy here again at the winery. Last weekend's May Blossoms wine trail event was a hit. Everyone that stopped in got a potted cinnamon basil plant with their tasting. We've been bottling our 2006 whites and thoroughly sampling our 2006 reds which are still in the barrel. It would sound pretentious to boast that the 2006 vintage is a step up from last year's, but in our opinion that's the case.

Speaking of our first vintage, they continue to collect awards from respected competitions including the latest one, the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. These wines won the following medals:

Cabernet Sauvignon 2005: Silver medal
Cabernet Franc 2005: Bronze medal
Manning Manor Rose 2005: Bronze medal

Our pinot noir vines of which we have several clones planted in our two vineyard blocks are opening up nicely and really benefited from an early warm up here on the Niagara Escarpment. These vines produced an amazing first crop last fall and everyone that's come in for a barrel sample has considered buying allocations via our barrel club. We can't believe how good that wine has been drinking since we racked it into barrels some four months ago. We're keeping our fingers crossed that 08 is even half as good as last summer was for our reds.

Last weekend we hosted a local meeting of the American Wine Society in our production facility at the winery. We took each guest through a flight of six whites and six reds. The whites included our 05 and 06 Semi Dry Rieslings as well as our 06 Manning Manor Blanc which we released last week as well. The reds included our 07 pinot noir barrel sample and a Bordeaux style blend of our 06 reds from the barrel. We skimmed through their tasting notes afterwards, and the reviews of our new wines we quite high, even when compared to the ringers we through in, which included a 94 point St. Emilion Chateau Quinault Grand Cru from 2005. We promise our blend won't cost even half of what this one did, even with its huge tannins and power!