What happened?? It is already September!!

As usual the month of September is promising a lot of fun, some long days and a good amount of stress.

Our wine by the tap program is going very well, we did start to serve un-finned/unfiltered / low SO² wines made at City Winery since 4 months now, it has been a big success, we are thinking of expanding this concept by adding more taps this winter but need to focus on this coming harvest right now.

We did bottle some wines within the past few weeks: '08 Sohovignon Blanc (100% Sauvignon Blanc) '08 downtown white (96% Chardonnay, 2% Muscat & 2% Sauvignon Blanc) and '08 Van Dan Zin (95% Zinfandel) and will keep bottling within the coming weeks with our '08 Pinot Noir Bacigalupi vineyard, '08 Syrah Madder Lakes, and some '08 Cab (final blend in process). We are discovering the maze of paperwork needed for label approval and how much fun it is to get a truckload delivery of glass in center of Manhattan!!

Just to add some fun, we decided to switch some tanks in our winery to get a cuverie more adapted to our '09 vintage: more diversity in our grape selection but lower tonnage per lot. We are introducing Cabernet Franc and Roussanne from Alder Spring vineyard in Mendocino, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Poseidon's vineyard in Carneros and Riesling (for sure this year) from Uvas Blanca vineyard in the Finger Lakes. Our lots will range between 2 to 6 tons with most lot tonnage of 3-4 tons (meaning 8 to 10 barrels). Taking into consideration City Winery will keep at least 2-3 barrels per lot for its production and the fact than 90% of our investors and partners are doing wines again this year, we will not have too many barrels for sale, if you want a barrel, you better secure it right away.

A special thanks to Robert Kowal who worked with us since the start and is back in Oregon. We have been through many challenges last year together; a winery start up is always full of surprises. It has been a pleasure to have him working with us; his input was always greatly appreciated. Luckily, Rob will still be connected to City Winery by overseeing our crop selection and logistics in Oregon.

We are planning to start our first crush (Pinot Noir from Poseidon's vineyard in Carneros) on September 20th , and are going to organize a event around it with tasting our some of our '08 wines, music and live crush. Harvest is coming!!

David Lecomte