Tickets are on sale now for Chicago, D. The last 8 fermentors of Clos Pepe were pressed to barrel this past weekend. I'm still been plenty busy, packing wine for distributors, stuffing envelopes for my mailer and basically trying to catch up on about a billion things. The bulk of the mailers have been dropped off at the post office. I have a bunch of address changes to update, and I still have a few hundred mailing list sign-ups that I haven't processed yet.
As much as I hate it, I think I'm going to have to start a waiting list. The good thing is next year I'll be tripling my production, so hopefully I can get wine to everyone who wants it. Since harvest is basically over, I think this will be my last blog entry.
I could go on and on about all of the things that I do the rest of the year to make the winery run, but after awhile it would just sound like all I do is complain -- as if these updates haven't already made you think that!
The truth is I love making wine. It's the only job that I'd do for free. Come to think of it, I actually PAY to do this job. I guess that shows how much I love it! I've enjoyed being able to bring you a small glimpse into what harvest is like at a small winery. Winery work isn't glamorous -- it's long hours, hard work and not a lot of sleep. But the pay off is HUGE.
In my day job, I never get any feedback from my customer. I've never had a Navy guy come up to me and compliment me on my missile-launch system. Or say that they just loved how the new torpedo controls responded. But I do get a lot of positive feedback from the wine I make. The fact that anyone is willing to pay for something I make, and then takes the time to contact me to express their appreciation is mind-blowing.
