My apologies to everyone for failing to keep you all updated on our progress.  It happened because things just kept accelerating, and I had less and less time available.

It is amazing how things progressed so quickly.  And the serendipity continues-- People just seem to keep appearing in the nick of time.  Need a floor cleaning expert?  One appears.  Need signs made?  A signmaker appears.  This has happened again and again.  It is blowing my mind-- the universe really likes what we're doing here.

By the way, we've chosen the first two recipient charities for our $1 per bottle donations.  (Each bottle of wine sold results in $1 to charity.)  Bottles of Bill's Waltz have their $1 got to Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Upper Midwest.  Those for Calypso go to breast cancer research.

We had a soft opening two weeks ago, and it's helped us iron out a lot of kinks.  But some pretty great sales results, from a few small road signs and word of mouth have already been keeping us busy.  

This weekend is our Grand Opening, and our whole staff is really getting excited about it.  We think we're ready, but I've got my fingers crossed.  We've got all available staff on site, a local portable pizza maker, three different entertainment groups (two on Saturday, one on Sunday), our first selection of cheeses, beer, and soda in the coolers (along with the best cold climate wine anywhere.)

Please come join us.  

Things continue to progress, in a lot of areas.

First, in keeping with our name, we've decided to name our wines after dances  We've had a lot of fun trying out dance names, and fitting them with particular wines.  If you come to our tasting room, I welcome your feedback.

The most exciting thing (at least for me) is that we have settled on the construction of our first six wines, and they are extraordinary.  Ken has done it again.  I opened two sample bottles at a dinner party last week-- Calypso and Tap Dance.   Both were big hits.  Everyone noticed and liked the wonderful nose that happens with our wines.  

I may not have mentioned before, we have an official logo.  Here it is:

Construction for the main building is under way.  Here's a picture of what it should look like from the road.


Imagine a black metal gate opening onto a blacktop drive, leading between two fields of vines going off to the right and left, right up to that front door.  That was the vision from the beginning.  I do hope it ends up looking as cool as it does in my mind. 

The final compromise on our opening date has occurred.  (If it slips further, some have opined that there may be bloodshed involved.)  Come hell or high water, May 1, 2013.

Also we are working on our website, which will allow us to start enrolling people into our Wine Circle-- our insider wine club.

Brenda made a slideshow of our fall crush. The slideshow is shown above. (Brenda is our new operations manager.  Other important people you'll see include Ken, our master winemaker, and Josie, our assistant winemaker.)

We just got our barrels in for this year.  I know this picture is sideways, but I can't figure out how to turn it 90 degrees.  Too cool to forego, though-- notice the logo branded on the head.

We will be the "Presenting Sponsor" at this year's gala for Ronald McDonald House.  See http://rmhc-um.org/news-events/events/.  If you're there, please come say hi.

It's been too long between posts.  Sorry about that.  Things have been happening.

The winery building is finished, and yesterday we moved our first 8 tanks in. We have spent some weeks finalizing our construction plans for the main (tasting and event) building, and are ready to break ground!!

We should have wine fermenting in a matter of weeks, and ready to taste for an anticipated opening of May 1, 2013.  

Our first bit of marketing will be in November-- We are presenting sponsors of the Ronald McDonald House event called Fam Glam.  Here's a link: http://rmhc-um.org/news-events/events/. 

This year will likely be the busiest year of our winery.  Some of the things in motion now:

• We have hired a part-time senior winemaker (Ken) and a full-time junior/journeyman winemaker (Josie).  Ken is a master at (among other things) blending cold climate grapes.  Josie comes to us with extensive sparkling wine experience, so we're excited about the possibilities.

• Our new winery building is being built.  Here's the finished foundation, taken within the last 24 hours.
• Scott (with Josie's help) is busy planting about 3,000 new vines, which will hopefully start bearing wine-able fruit in two or three years.
• We've got polished, final logos (3 versions on the theme), thanks to our new graphics guy (Matt).  He will also help us with our website, allowing our friends to find logo-imprinted stuff.
• Our main building is being designed even now, with some exciting possibilities.

We are blessed by finding so many good people who are making helping us, and our success, part of their goals.  It's so great to find people we can count on to watch out for us.  The most major ones include:

• Brenda, our friend and manager.
  
• Steve Palmer, who's been absolutely essential in many, many ways.
• Chuck Kuhl, our contractor, who is a master of what he does.  (At least so far.  Don't lose your focus, Chuck.)
• PS and Puneet Vedi, our architects, who are great at dealing with a critical and demanding client (me). 

There are also a host of others, which would take too much space to name.  In addition, so many people seem genuinely interested and supportive.  Please know that we're grateful to all of you.

Look for our opening in 2013!

Now it's getting real.  Our machine shed is up and running.  I met this week with our architects to get going on our winery and tasting room buildings.  Below is our site plan, at least as it now is.

We are planning on having wine from the 2012 harvest, and running on all cylinders.

Well, the old farmhouse is gone.  A neighbor stopped by to thank us for getting rid of "the old neighborhood haunted house."  Most of the brush is gone.  We're pretty much wiping the slate clean for the property, and starting over.

We've got the core of our site plan done, and it's exciting.  A new entrance will lead directly to the tasting room, through some rows of vines.  The back of the building will look out over the fields, hopefully creating a pleasant view and a place to sip some wine outdoors.

To the left will be the aging/storage room, then the equipment barn; to the right will be a parking lot and then the winery.  

This fall, we expect to have the deer fence and the barn up, and water and power to it.  

In 2012, we'll plant remaining vines and build the remaining buildings.  

We expect we'll have wine in 2013, although some of it will be from others' grapes for the first year.  

Sometimes it seems like we'll never get there; other times it's hard to believe we've come so far.

To quote Scott, "I'm not sayin' we're good at it yet, but we are growin' grapes!"