According to the weather gurus we may have a damp day in the vineyards of Glenora and along the shores of Seneca (also at the Wine Festival). Under cloudy skies our temperature is 58 degrees as the Festival Team prepares to start the third day of the Finger Lakes Wine Festival.

            In the vineyards: We are now in the early summer mode which means the vineyard teams continue on with spraying and mowing. At CLR we will soon be plowing the areas where the older Seyval vineyards were. After that some cover crop will be planted in preparation for planting of Riesling next Spring. This coming week we will be starting our 2014 crop estimation project. This usually starts about 30 days after bloom and at a point where we have reached approximately 1200 growing degrees days. By counting the young clusters on representative vines (best done by random selection) in each vineyard (variety) and then weighing the same we can get a fairly accurate estimate of what the projected yields will be for the upcoming harvest. However, (isn't there always one of these) the project will be made more difficult this year due to the issues caused by the cold weather this past winter. In the words of Cornell Cooperative Extension crop estimation is going to be "a crap shoot" this year. We still continue to monitor downy mildew along with the Japanese beetles that are starting to make an appearance (invasion). We will be watching them closely particularly in the Arrandel vines that are in the grow tubes-the beetles can strip one of those vines in less than a day.

            On the road: The In store tasting teams worked central New York this past week with tastings taking place from Pittsford to Binghamton and points in between. They even recruited Kerry to do a tasting in Watkins Glen on Friday evening, The Festival Teams are probably having their biggest weekend of the year as they are attending the Finger Lakes Wine Festival at Watkins Glen International this Weekend pouring Glenora's, Knapp's and CLR' finest. They started on Friday evening at the Toga party and will finish this evening at 5 PM. It is a long weekend however it does help deplete a significant amount of inventory. As well another part of the Festival Team was at the Taste of Buffalo yesterday pouring wines from both Glenora and Knapp.

            More weather news-according to some weather gurus we will be experiencing what they are calling the "Poor Man's Polar Vortex" this coming week with temperatures forecasted to be 10-30 degrees below normal depending which part of the mid-west or north east you live in. This must be driving Al Gore nuts as it is supposed to be getting warmer-we were going to  plant pineapples at CLR now it is back to Riesling (!

            Kathy and James, our wedding and special events team reported that the three weddings last weekend went off without a "hitch". All were very happy with the venue, food and staff. Our thanks to them and the Veraisons team. It takes a lot of work to do three back to back weddings in one weekend. Since they were so well practiced they did almost the same this weekend with a 128 person wedding and reception on Friday, and a 110 person wedding and reception yesterday. On Monday they will host a dinner- 100 people-- for an Audi group that are from New Milford, CT.

            The editor attended a Seneca Lake Wine Trail meeting on Tuesday during which it was noted that the trail's event ticket sales for the first six months of 2014 were down by 17% as compared to the same period last year. 17% less sales means 17% less visitors which could have met 17% less sales-fortunately our retail team, as always, has done a stellar job of "selling" so our numbers on pretty much on an even keel even though visitation in the retail shop is down by 3% for the first half of 2014,

            Both Jim and Adeline, our regional sales representatives, note that our distributor and most other distributors will be on "shutdown" (vacation) next week. Consequently Jim and Adeline will be working the market alone keeping our wines front and center in the wine shops and restaurants. While this is not ideal, there is some benefit to us as we have Jim and Adeline working the marketplace, many wineries do not have winery representatives so their wines will not be getting much attention next week, while we will!!-every cloud has a silver lining!

            Thought for the week:                                     Attitude

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goals; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.