sunny and seventy this Friday!

We hope you can join us...

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Tasting Notes: from the vineyard

Dispatch from the Vineyard Vol. 1.

The grass is starting to green, flowers are popping out of the ground, the treeline is turning red. You know what that means: Spring Training! The vineyard staff here loves to talk baseball, and we are all excited that Kevin Youkilis, Robinson Cano, and Oliver Perez (go Ollie!) are in Florida getting themselves ready for opening day. But its spring training here at Jonathan Edwards Winery too. We're getting the vineyard in shape for the growing season.

Our opening day doesn't usually happen until the first week of May, but we've got plenty to do to keep us busy. We're finishing the pruning of the Pinot Gris today. Pruning is a lot like managing a baseball team. You have to make cuts. Imagine a baseball field crowded with hundreds of players. Dudes would be tripping over each other and the best players would get lost in the shuffle. When pruning a vine you can only keep a certain number of buds if you want to make high quality wine. Good roster decisions help you win baseball games; good pruning decisions help you grow the best fruit. And growing grapes in CT is like playing in a tough division (like the AL East), you have to be on top of your game if you want to succeed.

After the pruning is finished we still have to train the vines by wrapping the fruiting canes (a one year old shoot that doesn't get cut out which contains this seasons crop) around a "fruiting" wire, which runs straight down the row a few feet off the ground. If we don't do this then the law of the jungle prevails, which makes for bad team chemistry.

On warm days (temp > 50) we practice pitching, fielding, and batting during our lunch break on the wiffle ball field. Guy's curve is still a few inches outside the strike zone, and Dan's fielding is a work in progress but by the time the season starts I'm sure they will be ready to go. I usually give up the most bombs (home runs) while pitching, and the guys seem to be happy that I'm already in mid-season form.

I feel like our lineup is pretty solid going into the season. Our Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc provide steady production and are just entering their prime. The Gewurztraminer is looking to rebound from a tough 2009 campaign (rain, hail, wind driven rain, and more rain during bloom crippled our yield) and is my preseason pick for comeback player of the year. And like many talented baseball pitchers have done, the Pinot Gris is poised to breakout after solid rookie and sophomore seasons.
Next time you visit the winery take a walk outside to see how the training is coming along.

Chris Moore

Fourth Annual Open Cellar this Friday!

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This is one of our most popular events of the year and we hope you can join us!

It is complimentary, open to the public and an opportunity to get a sneak peek some of the new releases still in the barrel!

web construction.

As we continue to improve our website, we are looking for more and more ways to share, inform and celebrate what we do here at Jonathan Edwards Winery. Improved functions will include:

•a full photo and film gallery

•easy access to become a fan on Facebook

•improved functionality for our countless wine shops and restaurants

{downloadable logos, shelf talkers, info sheets}

•streamlining and broadening our on-line shipping {free shipping for a case!} capabilities

•sharing our club membership newsletters with recipe suggestions and winemakers notes

As a teaser, here is our " A Day in the Life" 8 minute film short we are currently adding to our website.

Be sure to let the film fully stream before playing to avoid 'hiccups'.

http://www.jedwardswinery.com/video/

Cheers!

Tasting Notes: from the tasting room

Spring??

Just as I was planning on wishing everyone a Happy New Year I realized that Spring begins this Saturday! 2010 is already proving to be a fun year here at the winery and I hope to be able to share a bit of that excitement with all of you.

Early April will mark four years that I have been working in the Tasting Room at Jonathan Edwards Winery - I can’t believe it has been that long already! Over these past four years I have made great memories both with our staff and guests, both of whom I am happy to call friends. Visitors to the winery love to comment that I have the best job in the world – and they just might be right! Who am I to complain when just outside of my “office” are great views of the vineyard, changing with every season? I work with a great group of people and we all have a real passion for what we do. I am lucky to get to meet people from near and far and spend the day chatting about something that I love. Seems like a pretty good gig!

This upcoming season we have lots in store to share that love for what we do here at JE. Tables and chairs have been moved out to the stone patio and the back deck in expectation of picnics and long afternoons sipping on a glass of Chardonnay. More evening events and opportunities to visit are being added and we are looking forward to everyone thawing out and coming to join us.

For our Grape Nuts Wine Club members, your Spring wines will be ready to go in April – a great time for me to get to visit with those of you that pick up your Club wines in the Tasting Room. The staff likes to joke that I know the name and address of every member by heart….not quite, but if I don’t know your name by now, I promise I will soon! Our new JEd’s Reds Wine Club (Reds Only) will have a second installment coming up in May. This is a club we started based on love for our big red wines and I am excited to see how many of you are already interested!

One question I am often asked is what is my favorite wine? That is definitely an ever evolving answer and depends on what is available at the moment. Right now:

2007 Napa Valley Petite Sirah – If I had to choose ONE favorite grape, it would be Petite Sirah! Our newest red release is as good as ever. Great with a hearty winter roast for these last few cold evenings, what I love most about Petite Sirah is that it has so much character that I enjoy it as a glass of wine to sit, relax and just enjoy on its own.

2008 CT Chardonnay – I always think of myself as a red wine girl but every time I have a sip of our Connecticut Chardonnay I love everything about it! Not your typical Chardonnay, this wine has a toasty aroma and a light citrusy kick that surprises (and pleases) nearly everyone.

Hope to see you all soon!

Andie

Tasting Notes: from the winery

We are starting a new feature called Tasting Notes to give you the latest directly from the source. Every month, there will be several new Tasting Notes from the vineyard, from the road, from the tasting room and from the winery.

Today's Tasting Notes are from the winery and Mike Harney...

Well, usually March in the winery is a slow time of year and surprisingly we’re very busy. The 2009 wines are safely barrel aging and ready for their first racking. I always feel like the initial racking of the reds is when we get our first feel for what the wine will really do, so I am excited. We’re getting ready for spring and summer, and the bottling schedule is full, here are some of the wines we are about to bottle:

Stone Table Red Our first STR was such a hit that Jon has decided to make it a staple on our list of offerings. Our second bottling is a blend of Napa Valley Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Sirah. We really love it and hope you will, too.

2007 DARK This is our port style, fortified wine. This year for the first time we have blended the two varietals of our ‘Dark.’ The blend is one third Zinfandel and two thirds Petite Sirah. The blending of the wines added a depth and complexity that we really love.

2008 Napa Valley Chardonnay While we used the same vineyard in Napa as previous years, in 2008 we blended in a small lot of Napa Carneros Chardonnay that we couldn’t resist. It was a wonderful wine on its own, but when we blended it with our usual Jamieson Canyon Chard, we seemed to strike a chord. The Carneros just adds a bit more melon to the nose and a slightly more crisp acidity to the finish.

2009 Connecticut Pinot Gris For such a challenging growing year, the quality remains remarkably high. The same fresh pear that we tasted in the 2008 Pinot Gris we can find here in the 2009. The yield, however, is a bit lower than we would have liked, so with only about 135 cases, get some while you can.

By the time we get these wines bottled spring will be upon us and more wines will follow such as our 2009 Merlot, our new 2009 Napa Pinot Grigio and more. By then, we’ll be thinking about Springfest and trying to help the vineyard team keep up with the handwork.

See you soon!

-Mike

blues in the barrel room.

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Tickets are selling quickly and space is limited. We hope you can join us!

Winemakers Dinner 2010

Here are a few detail images from our sold out success at our annual Winemakers Dinner on February 27th. It was one of our favorites to date with wonderful menu highlighting all local and seasonal foods from River Tavern. Each dish was artfully paired with some fantastic vintages from our libraried collection. We went with a decor of deep merlots with gold along with brambly flowering Quince branches and gnarly grapewood as centerpieces to accent the feel of late winter at a vineyard. Visit our full photo album on our Facebook page! Thank you to all our friends who came out for a night where the wine, conversation and music was flowing.

a day in the life.

In early February, the talented Josh Behan spent the day at the winery capturing images of our staff and a day in the life in the vineyards. We are adding a section to our website with these fantastic photojournalistic images along with a lively short film by Buzz Media Company.

If you would like to see more images from that day, check out our Facebook page otherwise be sure to check back under 'Our Story' on our website in a few weeks!