Are we out of the woods yet? By David Bova

As General Manager of Millbrook Winery I get to worry and lose sleep about everything that goes on here - things I can control and things I can't.

One might think that my number one worry would be the recession and its effect on our business. This has yet to be a big worry as we are very fortunate to have dedicated customers who love serving local Hudson Valley wines at their dinner table. In fact, we actually were able to grow our case sales in 2009 as local and NY Metro customers really have been supporting our products - to those people I say thanks....

No, my biggest worry this time of year is the temperature outside - something I can't control. You see we grow 30 acres of vinifera grapes. Vitis vinifera - or European varieties - include our Chardonnay, Tocai Friulano, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc. While most agree "vinifera" grapes make the best wines of the world, they are also very sensitive to the cold winters and, if it gets too cold, our grape harvest could be wiped out for a season, or worst case - the plants could die altogether. When I watch the weather forecast each night during the months of December through February, I don't focus on how much snow, or the high temperature of the next day - I focus on the low temperature.

Through our 30 year experience growing vinifera in the Hudson Valley, we know that when the temperature drops below 0F our plants don't like it. Depending on the absolute temperature and duration of the absolute temperatures before a -0F event, this will determine if we lose buds (where the fruit resides) to winter damage. Losing buds means losing fruit in the upcoming harvest. Losing fruit means losing money - which is never good. After years of experiments with vinifera varieties in our vineyard - the four we grow are what we consider the most winter tough varieties for our Hudson Valley climate.

I think we are probably out of the woods for temperatures below 0F - so maybe I can go back to my normal full night sleep - please keep your fingers crossed!

The Inaugural Post, by Tim Krause

As the writer of this inaugural Millbrook blog I thought I might begin by introducing myself. My name is Tim Krause and I have been working at the winery for 3 harvests. During that time I have participated in just about every operation at the winery including, the tasting room reserve bar, bottling, deliveries, and now Ct. wholesale sales. But I am most proud of my picking for the 2009 harvest even though I wasn’t very good. As I have observed the winery in action from all its different angles I have been most impressed by the dedication and loyalty the entire staff has toward producing award - winning wines.
So with the Olympic music playing in the background, I set out to find how Millbrook Winery actually goes about producing award-winning wines. My first stop was to visit with the winemaker of every Millbrook vintage and the most decorated of all-time, John Graziano. (Not be confused with the legendary Dick Button although both skate well.) I asked John how we determine what events to enter and what wines do we pick. I was trying to ascertain whether this was a random selection or whether these were the hand-picked individual selections by John himself. He was quick to inform me that the selection process is handled by the marketing department.
This led me to my next stop to see the second longest serving employee at Millbrook winery, Stacy Hudson. She said every year we only send our estate grown wines to the Hudson Valley Wine Competition that is put on by the Hudson Valley Wine & Grape Association. Some years we will send our wines to other competitions if we are asked to compete, but for the most part we basically allow for the wines to speak for themselves. We enter the Hudson Valley competitions so we can be good neighbors and support the efforts of our wine making region. And our participation has been rewarded year after year with our most recent victory awarding our 2007 Pinot Noir Block Five East as the Cornell Cup winner (Best Wine of the Hudson Valley).
Although we have just sold out of this wonderful wine, the 2008 vintage was just recently bottled. This wine will probably be bottle aged for 4-6 months before it is released in our Tasting Room. Until then…cheers!