We had a great Thanksgiving in wine country with our good friends and their family. We came back Friday and held a casual open studio open house on Saturday and Sunday.

It was a great success! Instead of our normal party, this was just a simple wine tasting with art from our friend Jane Fisher and barrel candle holders from me. Mine are very simple and we have a few left - $20 each. They are just staves - no varnish, stain or anything. I like how the wood looks after years of red wine. (Email me if interested, I have no idea how to ship these nor photograph them as you can see. That said, one customer did a great job - check out her photograph and description at gigegy: Indie Holiday Shopping Series 2008: Studio Style )



As we read the news these days, we are very thankful for all of our customers. The wine business is suffering with this down turn. Matt Garretson, who makes very interesting and exciting wines, decided to call it quits - http://www.garretsonwines.com/. Sean Thackery has been experiencing what we have - great orders from mailing list customers but reliable distributors not being able to order. Mr. Thackery wrote this in a recent email to customers:

The Chicken Little Discount. While orders from the Winelist
haven't been much affected by all the recent turmoil, two of the
wholesale distributors I sell to are delaying buying anything from
anyone until the sky stops falling. This is exasperating, since in
the meanwhile, I have harvest bills & a payroll to meet; so I can't
see any good reason not to offer their allotments to the Winelist
instead, & at the same (wholesale) price. This is an unheard-of
discount: 33 1/3%. It applies only to the 2006 Andromeda and 2006
Sirius, and only through the end of this year, or until we've sold
through these particular allotments, whichever comes first. As I
would hope those of you who have tasted them will agree, these are
pristine examples of what those wines should be, and will age
splendidly. Thus my bills get paid, and those of you built of stouter
timber than my offending distributors, can stock a larger supply of
some (in my opinion) truly remarkable wines at an otherwise
unobtainable price.

At the same time, this morning I saw that the Hong Kong Auction on Black Friday was considered a big success beating the estimate by roughly 20% - www.reuters.com. Hopefully this is a sign of better time ahead in the near future. In the mean time, we are offering free shipping on our available wines for our mailing list customers and their gift giving needs through the end of the year. Not on the list, just join.