A Tasting Room Manager Wears Many Hats, by Barbara Best

As I stood in the big box store contemplating light bulbs, not grapes, I realized how diversified my day can truly be. My name is Barbara Best and I have the privilege of being the Tasting Room manager at Millbrook Vineyards & Winery.
As the Tasting Room manager, I enjoy a wide spectrum of daily jobs which include the mundane (picking out light bulbs that will illuminate our winery,) to hiring and training tour guides, buying and laying out retail displays, booking bus tours and constantly reading, reading, reading, in order to stay “up” on every aspect of the wine industry.

During our “off-season”, or winter, I can be found conducting tours and tastings and manning the cash register. I also have the opportunity to attend workshops and trade shows that pertain to wine/food and marketing. It is in the “off-season” that the managers at Millbrook are mad at work developing what we hope to be, the best “season” yet to come. I find that I am able to accomplish a lot of projects that would usually get placed on the back burner during the very busy late summer/autumn harvest season. Hopefully, when next you visit, you will take stock of a newly painted wall, tasting bars that were moved or displays that help to bring our wines/products into greater focus. I will be most appreciative, as will the great team here at the winery, of those who find that our creative minds were in overdrive while in the vineyard the vines lay dormant.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention how wonderful it is to work in such a beautiful place. Last week as I left my work day behind, I drove through the vineyard just as a majestic bald eagle took flight over the vineyard. At that moment, I wished everyone who has ever visited Millbrook Vineyards & Winery could have been present. The vineyard is more than its sum, just as the people we meet here are more than just oenophiles enjoying a wine tour and tasting. I am pleased to meet and greet you all on any given day!

Selling Wine In The Hudson Valley, By Scott Koster

As the Director of Sales at Millbrook Vineyard & Winery, it is my pleasurable task to introduce area restaurants and retail stores to the wonderful wines our winemaker, John Graziano, has produced for 25 years. I also am the face of Millbrook in the market place which is the part of my job that I LOVE! Making sure that each of our clients receives the best service and attention to their needs keeps my job varied and interesting. We are very lucky to have the support of so many talented chefs and wine shop purveyors.
This time of year, once the autumn harvest season and holiday rush is over, we are planning and projecting for the upcoming year. I will be more focused on our wholesale markets.
For the fourth consecutive year, we are involved as a major sponsor for Hudson Valley Restaurant week. During what is normally the slow season for the restaurant industry, Hudson Valley Restaurant Week provides a unique and affordable dining experience.
Sourcing local foods and products has become very popular among many in the food service today. Chefs are enjoying the superior freshness of products grown locally. In this fast paced world it is important to have a relationship with the farmer or producer of the products that are making their way to your restaurants table. More and more the chef is asking for and highlighting local ingredients on their menus.
We are fortunate to live and work in the Hudson Valley which is a rich, diverse culinary treasure box. Culinary tourism has also grown tremendously over the last few years. Hudson Valley Restaurant Week is a culinary celebration and dining event promoted by the Valley Table magazine. The popular event has gown to include over 125 restaurants who will serve over 150,000 diners during the two week period of March 15-28th of 2010.
Chefs will be highlighting their signature dishes while sourcing locally from small farms and artisanal producers. I am proud to say that Millbrook wines will be poured at many of these establishments and have been selected to compliment the cuisine.
What are you waiting for? Check out hudsonvalleyrestaurantweek.com, select the participating restaurant of your choice, and enjoy the bounty of the Hudson River Valley. While visiting the restaurant, please don’t forget to enjoy a glass of Millbrook wine with your meal!

Tales From A Tour Guide, By Tom Mandato

My name is Tom Mandato. I am a part time employee and have been conducting tours and wine tasting sessions for almost eight years. I retired from my former profession over ten years ago and took this job as a way of getting out of the house a couple of days a week. It was supposed to only last about three years until such time as my wife retired. But, I’ve been having so much fun, I’m still at it. Over the years I have become so familiar with many of the Millbrook family of customers that we recognize each other when we meet locally.

My wife Sally and I, along with friends, had been visiting Millbrook Winery for years. We would often attend new release tasting sessions and those highly enjoyable summer concert series that were held on Saturdays. So, when I applied for the part time position, I was not a neophyte to the Millbrook world of wine. Also, being of Italian heritage, I had some limited experience in wine consumption.

Over the years it has been my pleasure to meet people from all walks of life and probably as many countries as belong to the United Nations. I’ve had occasion to pause while interpreters interact between me and those taking the tour. I even had one interpreter ask me if I could conduct the tour in Hebrew. Being from Brooklyn I am familiar with some Hebrew terms but not enough to hold a full conversation. I mention these encounters as a way of highlighting how popular and highly recommended Millbrook has become as the place to visit when considering a wine tour and tasting experience.

One of Sally’s and my favorite pastimes is to visit wineries during our vacations. We have been up and down the west coast from northern Washington to San Diego, California. We’ve visited wineries in New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and other U.S. wine producing areas as we’ve driven around these wonderful United States of ours. We have also been fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit many wineries in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and of course Italy. Needless to say, we have tagged along on more tours than we can recall. When I first started conducting tours I felt that Millbrook’s was far superior to anything I had previously attended. However, while it has always been greatly informative, it was limited to a verbal description of a specific process and the pointing to such things as the vines, presses, vats, barrels and the bottling station. Last year we began to expand and improve the tour to include photos and displays (i.e. equipment, wine fermenting, aging, the inside of toasted barrels and cork harvesting) of the various stages of the grape growing and actual wine making processes. I recommend that no matter how many tours you may have taken in the past to please avail yourself of our new and interactive tour on your next visit.

I’m looking forwarded to meeting each and every one of you. Just remember that I only work two or three days a week. Also, we do change the variety of wines available for tasting several times during the year throughout the season. So, you’ll have to make plans for several visits, if not just to meet me, but to also enjoy the various wines available for tasting. Until then, have a happy and healthy year.

The Think Tank - Millbrook Winery Style, By Stacy Hudson

As the Marketing Director for Millbrook Winery, one of the most frequent questions I’m asked at the beginning of the year is, “Is it really slow up there in the winter?” As far as our visitor traffic goes, it definitely does slow down for the first couple months of the year but depending on the weather, we can still have some pretty busy weekends.

However, up in the Marketing Department there doesn’t really seem to be a slow season anymore! I vaguely recall years ago being able to organize filing cabinets and the like in the months of January and February, but that is a distant memory!

January usually brings a little time to decompress after the busy holiday season (our catch phrase for October through December!) but we mainly use this month to catch up on tracking our marketing efforts from the prior year. Late January through March brings us into planning for the upcoming year. For the past month and a half we have been having weekly marathon planning sessions. As we tend to get busier and have less time to meet as the year progresses, these beginning of the year meetings are a great way for us to brainstorm all the thoughts and plans we would like to implement at the winery.

Including our General Manager, our ‘Sales & Marketing’ team is 5 people strong. Although we all have a different focus (outside sales, direct to consumer sales, Tasting Room management) our core goal of always improving on what we are doing here at Millbrook Winery is our driving force. After twelve years at the winery, I think it is a testament to this place and our dedicated and creative group that I still get energized and excited about all the plans we are working on for 2010 and beyond. Stay tuned….