Isn't it Leap Year?

February 28, 2009

D'oh! For some reason I was certain that this was a leap year. I freaked out when I saw March 1st. But I think Crushpad has two floating holidays each year, so I'm going to take one of them as February 29th. I'm not certain of the logic but I am certain that you don't care all that much, so happy leap year. Actually I can blame it on corporate senility: we just turned five years old! I was told this was going to get easier after a couple of years, but that appears to be someone's idea of a sick joke. But even after five years of overwork, I still wouldn't trade it for anything else. Here's what's up...

2009 Vineyard List is Here! We just released our 2009 vineyard list. We've kept what we feel are the best performing vineyards, said goodbye to a few and have added a few. I'm often asked what our current economic mess means to fruit availability. The reality is not all that much. The challenge is that we're coming into a third consecutive drought year (yeah, even with all this rain), and with low yields in 2007 and 2008 supply and demand for Napa Valley Cab and cool climate Pinot Noir still favor the growers. Since most wines produced in 2009 don't hit the market until 2011 or 2012, wineries are buying for the future, not today. Luckily we've got long-term contracts that keep our fruit coming. Contact Dave Gifford (dave@crushpadwine.com) to find our more about 2009.

New Crushnet Features Every few weeks, we are releasing new features in Crushnet. While we're still in the middle of our big redesign (cross our fingers it will be up later in March), the engineering team has been knocking out new features such as Next Steps (upcoming actions you need to take on your wine) and Community Feed (a Facebook-like feed that shows you who's doing what). You can now request wines that are in storage to be picked up or delivered and shortly you will be able to request a barrel sample to be shipped whenever you have the inclination.

Dry Creek Vineyard Visit and BBQ on April 4th Want to see how a couple of Dry Creeks' best grape growers manage their old vine Zin vines (some up to 115 years old)? Then join us on Saturday, April 4th in Dry Creek. We'll spend a day in Dry Creek at Teldeschi and Grist Vineyards with Ray and Lori Teldeschi and Warren Burton, Vineyard Manager for Grist. They'll explore the history of growing Zin in Dry Creek Valley and you'll get some first-hand exposure to post-budbreak viticulture. The day ends with a BBQ at Grist Vineyard at the top of Bradford Mountain. It's limited to 16 people so RSVP here.

Get Your Widget On Between lashings, our engineering group has been creating a couple of fun widgets. The first one is Winemaker's Window. This widget can be found on Crushnet on the profile page of your wine. It is an interactive summary of your wine that you can place on your Facebook page, blog or desktop. It's a good way for you to track the highlights and to share with the rest of the world what you're doing. The second widget will go out this week... it's the Winemaking Question of the Day. If you're astute, you've probably figured out what it does. We reckon it's a good way to learn a little bit each day. And if you pay attention, you might do well at our first annual Crushpad Winemaking Bee that we will hold in May. More later.

The Wine Makers Reality Show is Coming Three years in the making, The Wine Makers if finally coming to a PBS station near you beginning in May. This is a six episode series where 12 contestants compete to launch their own wine brand. Guess where the wine is made? It's been a log slog, but we're excited to be associated with the show and have an opportunity to show a couple million PBS viewers what a lot of you are already doing. Also look for the nation-wide launch of the winner's wine in May. We'll let you know when we get firm dates on all of this.

Beta Test Organizations Wanted We are developing a system that will allow organizations such as non-profits, schools, alumni associations, clubs and others to create high quality wines that can be sold into their member base within a matter of days or weeks and with no financial risk. We think it's a great way to raise money for groups - large and small - while making a small contribution to the Buy-Brill-A-Jet-Before-He-Turns-50 fund. If you're involved with this type of entity with at least a few hundred members and would be willing to chat with us whether this hare-brained scheme will work, please contact Noah Dorrance (noah@crushpadwine.com).

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