Updated 08/26/2008
Volunteers Needed for the Maryland Wine Festival in Westminster September 20 and 21
It feels like so long since our last festival (Chesapeake Bay Wine Festival May 31-June 1), but now that Fall is upon us we restart our festival groove!
The Maryland Wine Festival is the "grandaddy" of Eastern wine festivals, celebrating its 25th year this year. It wasn't that long ago that the festival had 11 or 12 Maryland wineries, but this year there will be 24, including us. For those who have volunteered for us at previous festivals, we will have more room as we are going from a 20x20 tent to a 30x30 tent. Woo hoo! We are also working on developing a "By The Glass" bar on one corner that will be truly innovative (we hope).
So we need volunteers! The shifts are as follows:
Saturday September 20 (Festival Hours are 10-6)First Shift: 9-1
Second Shift: 12:30-4
Third Shift: 3:30-6:30
First Shift: 10:30-3
Second Shift: 2:30-7 (if you can stay all the way to 7, we would be eternally grateful as breakdown takes lots of work!)
As a volunteer, you will get a free pass to the festival to enable to visit all of our fine state wineries, a 10% product discount and 20% for case size (6 boxes) or more.
If you can volunteer please send a note to volunteer@terrapinstationwinery.com. Hurry before all the cool spots (depending on your definition of what that is) are gone.
A few photos from Wine in the Woods just to get your wheels spinning (click to see larger photos):
Upcoming Harvest - August 31
Mother Nature always makes determining when to harvest challenging. We thought we might be ready to pick our Cayuga this Saturday, but we need a little more time to get some better ripeness. So, we are planning to harvest on Sunday August 31.
If you have not already done so, please let us know if you can help us harvest grapes, and when you do, please let us know if you can pick weekends, weekdays or both. If you can help please send a note to volunteer@terrapinstationwinery.com.
We will be (trying) to start at 7 AM on the 31st (so it is not so HOT), but if crawling out of bed to go harvest grapes at 7 on a Sunday morning doesn't quite get the blood flowing, just let us know when you can make it. We hope to be done around noon to 1 PM with harvesting (although that is just step one of a long day of crushing and pressing) and we are using some new equipment this year that should make the process go faster. And yes, children are more than welcome (we even TRY to get ours to do it). Please bring appropriate sunscreen and bug spray. If you are allergic to bees (like I am), please make sure you bring your kit, just in case. I have done a lot of harvests and have never been stung - but it does happen. We will provide lunch and make sure you are well hydrated.
Note that the celebrated Traminette is not too far behind the Cayuga, and if this EXCELLENT ripening weather (warm sunny days, cool nights) continues, we could have a harvest on par with 2007, which was a REALLY GOOD year.
Box Wine in the News!
We are generally finding that customers are very accepting of our packaging. There are a few stores that are skeptical. And then there is the wine press. In the past, they have been less than enthusiastic at times, but recently it appears that they are starting to really accept the idea, especially because the packaging is MUCH more eco-friendly. So don't consider us outliers, consider us at the front of the curve :-) Remember, as mentioned in at least a couple places in these articles, the vast majority (more than 90%) of wines do not need aging. So don't age it, drink it!
Philadelphia Inquirer - "Wine in a box - Earth-Friendly and the taste is...actually decent"
New York Times - "...the sky isn’t falling. Wine in a box makes sense environmentally and economically."
New Pricing
One of the things we are working on is to bring down the costs of the packaging. Unlike the big wineries that produce MILLIONS of cases of wine, we currently do not buy our designs at a large enough quantity to get the volume discounts that the big guys get. But we are working on a couple of alternatives and should have a lower cost package soon. So, over time you will see the price of many of our wines actually go DOWN to reflect the cost reductions we are planning to achieve. In fact, our wholesale prices are about to be reduced, and you will see some reduced pricing at the Maryland Wine Festival.