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 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!