Delaware City Council, Some Shops, Restaurants and Stuff

[apologies for lack of pics - will remedy that]

Delaware City were very impressed with our presentation. Our theme was Sustainability, Community and Integrity, rather than the "give us" attitude. They really appreciated what we had to say and have put us in touch with property owners in Delaware, who we're working with. This is all coming a couple of years ahead of plan as we were going to stay where we are for three production years and here we are, barely into year 2, and we're off speaking with Cities.

We had a great time at the Columbus Local Matters annual meeting putting local producers in touch with local business and we're following through on good contacts made at that event. Needless to say, we targeted those people who were in chef uniform first.

Going out to shops is an experience. You get all kinds of opinion expressed and it never ceases to amaze me just how subjective a subject wine is. I do not think we've had two tastings result in the same comments from the stores we have done. It has all been positive, but everyone finds their own thing in the wine.
The differentiator among stores is currently falling into two camps; those who are interested in the connection with the winemaker and how the wine is made, and those just concerned about marketability and price-point. All are equally valid - this is just an observation is all.

The restaurants are totally different though. They seem to need that connection to the winemaker, that we offer, so that they can talk as well about the wine and what it took to make it in the same way they can explain the food they make. We even have Scali's inventing a desert for the Trovato there and then as we took him thorough tastings of our wines!

Finally , all our labels are approved and are with Bob at Tapp's for printing. We hope to have them very soon as we have sales for the unlabelled wine too.

Last week we check the naturally occurring sulfite level in our wines. After 5 months from crush, the range is between 35ppm to 55ppm of naturally occurring sulfites. We added enough to get to 60ppm to stabilise through a year of upcoming ageing. Remember, 60ppm still well below the organic standard of 140ppm!

We're still seeking insurances - product liability etc. As a new venture this is not that easy and potentially limits sales as there are some entities that require you to carry the requisite insurances. We'll get through it though - always do.

We also thank Joe Mercurio for his support and introduction to Giuseppe's. Thanks, Joe.

Scali's & Let Down

[pic of Dante, in Pisa not Firenze as you'd likely assume]

Wednesday we had a change of venue for the weekly Via Vecchia Winery meeting. We went to Scali's restaurant. Quite a gem of a place, really. We met Frank (came over from Italy about 37 years ago with his parents) who runs the place and enjoyed his hospitality - he treated us to un piatto d' antipasto e poi, un digestivo per tutti. It's a great place that takes care of your needs and if you're appreciative you may get to sample something special that's not on the menu.
He actually loves our sanGiovese wine and was really impressed when he learned we make the genuine article without any added sugar, yeasts, coloring, glycerine, sulfites and so on as everyone else does. It was also nice to speak in Italian as I don't get that much of an opportunity these days and great to talk of mutual experiences of dining in Italy and so on and so forth. I'm sure we'll get into war stories before too long. Here's his link...
http://www.scaliristorante.com/home.html


As to putting the wine into barrels, which was meant to be tomorrow's activity, we had to cancel that because all shipments of French Oak barrels and Flextank maturation vessels have let us down.
The French Oak will get her next Tuesday (we hope) and the Flextank won't ship until feb 9!
Flextank cannot explain why they didn't ship since they were meant to go out 2 weeks ago! In fact they shipped the storage bag from Australia and it arrived here in three days! I suspect shippers play havoc with delivery due to the recent restrictive laws on driving hours that now include waiting time for loading/unloading - so they don't move until they have full or "economic" loads.
Flextank will see if they can get the maturation vessels out earlier. I do hope they can.

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