Vashon Winery Journal (vashonwineryjournal.com)

Mid-January. This has been a tough, tough season. The wettest November in history, followed by a terrible storm in December, pre-Christmas. It is really tough as I was looking forward to a very busy holiday season based on my sales year-to-date going into November. But geez, the bottom fell out.

I’m amazed that I seem to be doing okay, basically filling retailers’ shelves.

I’ve got a lot of work in the winery that I would like to get started on but it has been too cold, or outside my cement pad is covered with ice and snow. I’ll just wait.

The really good news is that I have some great wines on the market right now with my release of the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. Currently all of my wines are wines that I am totally responsible for as I bought the winery in December of 2001. And even though I was responsible for the grapes and the winemaking I still was pre-occupied with purchasing the winery and there was no guarantee that I could pull the sale off.

The bad news is that my sales were so bad that I am going to have to figure out a way to pay my grape suppliers. I’m going to see if I can get a loan from the Farm Bureau.

This is going to be a good year I think. I am going to do alot of events at the winery, like BBQ night on Fridays. I’ll provide the BBQ pit, customers bring their own BBQ foods and we will have music every Friday.

I will be back at the Saturday market on Vashon. It turned out to be one of my better revenue streams.

Also, I hope to get my website up and running. This blog will be linked to it. I am hoping to pick up some new business from out-of-state customers, and at retail.

That’s my theme this year: sell more wine at retail from the winery.

The other thing I am going to get more aggressive on is getting wines to wine journals or newspapers. I need to get Paul Gregutt to taste my wines and then look at some other writers or magazines. I would like Jancis Robinson to taste my wines. I know that she will like them as they are much more European in style.

Oh well, it should be a good year; one that is challenging and exciting.