idea being to make this a Afun@ wine - this wine has become our best-selling white despite the fact that we only sell it onsite.  Truth be known, our six year old daughter Tess designed the label; I did approach the principal of Tess= school about having a contest, but he felt that school children designing a wine label was probably not politically correct.  I gather that Tess has since recognized the popularity of her label as she now insists that we refer to her as Athe artist formerly known as Tess@.

ANYTHING ELSE ON THE HORIZON?
Glad you asked.  Within the next few weeks we will be releasing two more wines - a second release of our highly successful ice wine style apple dessert wine and a partially barrel fermented Chardonnay.  Again, if you are interested in either or both of these wines, please call me and I will reserve some for you.  These newsletters, in part, serve as our only way of providing you with advance notice of future releases.  Of course, we will be offering a Nouveau again in the fall, this time with more than just a few of our own grapes.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
I mean that so far this growing season has been fantastic.  If you haven=t been up to the vineyard in a while, you=d be surprised to see that the trellis system is up on the first 5 2 acres of vines, planted back in 1997,  in anticipation of our first significant harvest.  If the weather stays dry, we hope to be able to harvest anywhere from 8 to 18 tons of excellent quality grapes from this acreage, with Leon Millot (our nouveau grape) and Seyval Blanc leading the way. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RUMORS THAT MORE THAN JUST GRAPES FLOURISH IN THE VINEYARD?
Apparently, the rumors are true. Two of our interns from last summer, John Loucheim and Lindsey Cain, have announced their engagement.  I guess only Patrick and I were clueless to the fact that more than just vines were budding in the vineyard last summer, as all the women here knew (including Tess).  Must be a male thing.

HOW ABOUT SOME TASTING ROOM NEWS?
Well, Marilyn Connor, Roberta Courtney and Ingrid Hedboar have all returned this season. We think it is because of our fabulous salary and benefit package (no health insurance, but daily four mile runs and wine samplings help to keep us fit and happy).  Again, you are forewarned that if you are quiet nothing will happen, but if you ask Marilyn to tell you a joke, she will (let=s just call this the AFurby@ syndrome).  We are also pleased to have South Hero resident Jenn Bunker, formerly head of sales for USAir in Vermont, join our team.  We made Jenn feel right at home pretty quickly.  Having trouble opening our garage-style loading bay door, Jenn asked for the garage door opener.  The problem is that our garage door is a manual opening door, but, of course, we weren=t going to tell her that.  Instead, without missing a beat, I handed her the telephone and told her to dial A*35".  We let Jenn stay over by the door pushing A*35" into the phone for a few minutes before we could no longer contain our laughter.  By the way, she has promised to get even.  Anyway, we will be tapping into Jenn=s vast marketing experience in  promoting onsite events as well Next page