NEWSLETTER

Here Comes Budburst

March 31, 2008

Those of you who work in sane (i.e., non-agricultural) industries have certain advantages: namely that you don't have to get 80% of your work done in 2 months of the year. However, there are benefits of this business - such as visiting vineyards and seeing the first buds of the year and getting swept up by the excitement of another cycle. Then on the way home, if you're like me, you freak out and no amount of sedatives can keep your brain from wondering what the upcoming year will be like - did we secure enough fruit, too much? What if the upper valley is heavy and lower valley is light? We won't even know for six months! But by that time, we're wrapped up in harvest and somehow it just works out... it always does. Here's the scoop:

2008 Vineyard List Generally Available
We have released the 2007 list to everyone by now. If you haven't received it, please contact Dave Gifford (dave@crushpadwine.com) to get a copy. We've got most of the vineyards from last year and some awesome new sites that we've brought on board this year.

New Pan-Tilt-Zoom "Creepy" Cam
We've put up another streaming web cam... except this one allows you to move around and zoom in on anything or anyone. Right now we have it constrained to focus mostly around the bottling line. We will be adding the chat window by Wednesday this week that will allow you to talk directly to people on the floor. The latency is like two seconds now, so the conversations will be much more fluid than the old cams which had a 10-15 second lag. Go to www.crushpadwine.com and click on the Crushpad Cam icon on the left.

2008 Wine Planning Starting
We are just about to get going on 2008 wine plans. We are putting the finishing touches on the new wine planning pages in Crushnet that include much more educational content, including a new and improved enowiki and links to winemaking and grape growing educational content. Check out Crushnet's Media Section for the latest videos. In addition to our 1:1 wine planning sessions, we are also hosting more community wine planning events at the winery. Check out the event schedule for more info. Look for an email from one of our winemakers later in April to get started.

Get Your Label Going
As many of you can attest to, designing the label is one of the most fun parts of the process. We now have a team of four designers with a whole range of design styles to help you through the process. The challenge is often timing - sometimes we get a bit behind, so this year we're trying to get ahead. If your wine is to be bottled this summer (that applies to any 2006 wine, 2007 whites and Pinots) and you haven't started working with a designer on your packaging, please contact Sharon Ludtke (sharon@crushpadwine.com) to get the ball rolling. You may want to download our packaging guide as well. It walks you through your bottle, cork and capsule choices.

Wine Blending Wednesdays
We've hosted a bunch of group wine blending sessions at the winery recently as part of corporate team building events. What we were missing though was a designated day of the week for individuals and small groups to get in on the action. So we've launched Wine Blending Wednesdays; an intimate, informal 90-minute session ($45) where you can learn the art of wine blending even if you're not making wine with us. They're proving to be popular, so if you're interested in the next session on April 2nd, RSVP here. Or click on our Events page to RSVP for a later session. If you're interested in bringing in your own group at another time, contact Hayden Moulds for more info.

Wine 2.0 Event Held At Crushpad
Not sure if you guys remember, but your votes pushed us over the top to win the vator.tv Wine 2.0 competition last year. Now Wine 2.0 is an official movement with its own trade show. It is hosting its 2008 kickoff Soiree right here at Crushpad on the evening of April 24th. If you want to see what some of the more innovative wine/technology companies are doing, come to the event. See more details at the Wine 2.0 site.

Join Us At The Pinnacles Wine Festival
The Chalone AVA is a tiny region in Monterey that is producing some fantastic Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and Syrah. High elevation and limestone/decomposed granite soils help create some seriously massive wines. Unfortunately, we only get a couple tons of fruit from this area (from the Brosseau Vineyard) and it all goes to our good friend David Dain Smith. However, I'm proud to say that of the 14 producers making wine from the AVA, 7 of them had some role in helping Crushpad get going and all of them make fantastic wine. So if you're looking for something wine-related to do on April 26th, head up the beautiful Inn at the Pinnacles for the Pinnacles Wine Festival. Tell them Crushpad sent you and maybe they'll sell us more fruit!

Be a Friend of Crushpad on Facebook
We finally created a Crushpad group on Facebook and are looking for ways to deliver some of our more frequently-updated content there. It's a great way to connect with other Facebook members that are part of the Crushpad community. So join the group and let me know if you have any specific ideas on how we can use the group to better communicate.



…Michael