Adirondack Winery Lands Four Silver Medals at International Wine Competitions

LAKE GEORGE, NY (March 2, 2011):  Adirondack Winery is proud to announce that four of its wines recently earned Silver medals at International Wine Competitions.

Adirondack Winery’s Pinot Noir was awarded a Silver Medal at the 2011 International Pinot Noir Shootout, which is held each year in Chicago.  The Pinot Noir Shootout is a three month long competitive wine tasting, where a judging panel of about 40 Pinot Noir loving wine professionals taste approximately 300 different Pinot Noirs submitted by wineries from around the world. Needless to say, we are very pleased that our Pinot Noir stood strong among these wines, being awarded a Silver medal. This is the fourth medal our Pinot Noir has earned in the three years we’ve been making the wine. It also earned a Silver at the 2010 World Value Wine Challenge, Silver at the 2009 International Eastern Wine Competition, and a Bronze Medal at the 2010 Indy International Wine Competition.

Adirondack Winery’s Fireworks Red Merlot, Blue Twilight (Blueberry Shiraz) and Strawsling (Strawberry Riesling) all earned Silver Medals at the 23rd Annual Florida State Fair International Wine Competition, which was held in February. Additionally, our Chardonnay earned a Bronze Medal. At this competition, Adirondack Winery’s wines were judged alongside more than 1,000 other wines submitted by wineries from around the world.

“Each year, we enter a few of our wines in a small handful of wine competitions, so we are very pleased to earn four Silver Medals and one Bronze for our wines, when such steep competition is involved,” said Adirondack Winery President, Sasha Pardy. With these latest medal wins, 19 of Adirondack Winery’s wines have earned 30 medals to date.

Adirondack Winery CEO and wine maker, Michael Pardy, sources high quality grape must from California to create our Pinot Noir; which is fermented in stainless steel tanks, is light on tannins and oak, has moderate alcohol and lots of raspberry and black currant tones. The Strawsling and Blue Twilight are also born from California grapes; but Pardy adds natural strawberry and blueberry fruit product to the Riesling and Merlot to create these two semi-sweet, low alcohol, enjoyable fruity wines. The Fireworks Red Merlot is a fruit forward Merlot with medium body and oakiness – a great wine for those just getting into reds.

The wine labels on these award winning wines were created by Sasha Pardy and feature photographs of landscapes and landmarks of the local region. The Pinot Noir features a photograph of Rockwell Falls in Lake Luzerne; the Fireworks Red Merlot features the summer fireworks going off over Lake George; the Strawsling features the strawberry hot air balloon and a few others up in the air at the Adirondack Balloon Festival; the Blue Twilight features the sun breaking through on a cloudy Adirondack summer day; and the Chardonnay features a Blais Park in Lake George.
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
ABOUT ADIRONDACK WINERY:
Adirondack Winery opened April 17, 2008 as the region’s first winery. Winemaker and CEO, Michael Pardy, sources grape must from various vineyards to create the more than 35 wine varietals on Adirondack Winery’s wine list. The winery’s Tasting Room is located at 285 Canada Street in Lake George, while its wine making facility is located on Big Bay Road in Queensbury, NY. All of Adirondack Winery’s wine labels feature photographs of landscapes, landmarks, and special events in the local region, taken by Sasha Pardy.

Read Full Post »

ADIRONDACK WINERY AWARDED SIX MEDALS AT THE 2009 WORLD VALUE WINE CHALLENGE

 ADIRONDACK WINERY AWARDED SIX MEDALS AT THE 2009 WORLD VALUE WINE CHALLENGE

LAKE GEORGE , NY (October 12, 2009):  Adirondack Winery is proud to announce that six of its hand-crafted wines earned medals at the 2009 World Value Wine Challenge.

 The World Value Wine Challenge (“WVWC”); which took place in August 2009 and was put on by the Beverage Testing Institute, is recognized as the nation’s most comprehensive competition for wines $20 and under. With value on the top of everyone’s mind in this recession, this year’s competition was steep for wineries and drew much attention.

Adirondack Winery President, Sasha Pardy said, “Adirondack Winery is pleased to provide its customers not only with great wines, but good value, as the vast majority of its 35+ wine varieties are priced at $20 or less.”

Adirondack Winery’s Chardonnay won a Silver Medal (a.k.a. Highly Recommended) at the WVWC, while five additional Adirondack Winery wines were awarded Bronze Medals (a.k.a. Recommended): Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Red Barn (Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon), Fireworks Red Merlot, and Barbera.

The WVWC judges described Adirondack Winery’s Chardonnay as having a “Rich, golden color and offering aromas of pineapple, ripe kiwi, butter cream, and spun honey following through on a round, satiny entry to a fruity-yet-dry medium-to-full body with nice layers of citrus, praline, and spice.” Adirondack Winery CEO and wine maker, Michael Pardy, sources grape must from the Woodbridge , California area to create this Chardonnay – it is lightly oaked and aged in stainless steel drums. Pardy’s Chardonnay also won a Bronze Medal at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition earlier this year.

The WVWC judges described Adirondack Winery’s Bronze Medal-Winning Riesling as “lush”, its Red Barn Cabernet Sauvignon as “deep”, its Pinot Grigio as “soft and breezy”, its Barbera as “raisiny”, and its Fireworks Red Merlot as embodying brown spice and herbs. 

The wine labels on these award winning wines, which were created by Sasha Pardy, feature photographs of landscapes, landmarks and special events of the local region (find label pictures at end of this release):  

• Chardonnay: The flowering garden at Blais Park along Beach Road in Lake George
• Riesling: The first balloons blowing up and taking off at the Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival.
• Pinot Grigio: Boats docked along the Lake George Boardwalk at twilight. 
• Fireworks Red Merlot: Spectacular fireworks bursting above Lake George 
• Barbera: The night lights of boats waiting for the 4^th of July fireworks reflect on Lake George .
• Red Barn (Cabernet Sauvignon): One of many picturesque red barns that dot Washington County .

ABOUT ADIRONDACK WINERY: One of the few Lake George attractions to be open year-round, Adirondack Winery opened April 17, 2008 as the region’s first micro-winery. Winemaker and CEO, Michael Pardy, sources grape must from various vineyards to create the more than 35 wine varietals on Adirondack Winery’s wine list. All of Adirondack Winery’s wine labels feature photographs of landscapes, landmarks, and special events in the local region, created by Sasha Pardy. With its wine-making facility and tasting room located at 285 Canada Street in the heart of Lake George , Adirondack Winery has been met with success during its first two seasons in operation. 

The owners, Michael & Sasha Pardy are available for interviews upon request by calling 518-668-WINE or emailing at ILoveWine@AdirondackWinery.com. To view more details on Adirondack Winery’s Chardonnay, click here. Images of the winery are available here: http://www.adirondackwinery.com/Adirondack-Winery-Media-Room-Public-Relations.htm

(click pictures to retrieve higher quality label images)

  

  

(click pictures to retrieve higher quality label images)

Read Full Post »

Adirondack Winery’s Lake George Summer Over…Now What?

So, our summer officially ended on the day after Labor Day, Tuesday the 8th. Lake George’s season is typically defined as memorial day weekend to labor day weekend. It’s marked for us by our change of hours. We were open every day 10am – 10pm during the summer and it was not uncommon to close even later than that. My husband, Mike worked every single one of those days this summer, staying the entire 13+ hours for four days of the week – I would reprieve him on Thursdays and Sundays and on Wednesdays, we were lucky enough to have one of our trustworthy employees close for us so we could have family time with our daughter.

While many Lake George business are already fully closed and most left remaining will stay open through October, Adirondack Winery stays open year round. However, we’ve scaled back our hours – now we’re open Monday – Thursday 11am – 7pm and Fri-Say 11am – 9pm. I think we’ll scale back those hours more come January.

So, the summer recap – let’s see. We loved seeing so many faces from last year that we remembered, however, there was definitely a ton of new customers walking through our doors this season as well; which we know we can thank a lot of our loyal customers for. We had plenty of people tell us that friends or family told them to visit us, or they tried our wine at a party, or got it as a gift from someone.

I think all of our customers really appreciated that we managed to keep nearly all our wines in stock this summer, too! We had all 30+ of our wine varietals available to taste and buy nearly all season. Strawberry Riesling (Strawsling) ran out for just a short bit, as we were totally caught by surprise that it became our best selling wine this season – last year our Blueberry Shiraz was at the top of the list, so we expected that again, but strawberry emerged as the front runner. Our award winning Chardonnay was the favorite white and our award winning Pinot Noir was the favorite red. We are out (for now) of our Winter Concerto white chocolate port, which ended up the front running dessert wine this year!

It did rain a lot this year, however, in most cases, that meant that many customers forgo their outdoor activities in favor of a trip to the winery. It rarely got unbearably hot this summer, too, which was a plus.

I don’t know if all the talk about “staycations” and the Today’s Show’s Lake George spotlight possibly boosted the number of people visiting Lake George this year, but we certainly saw more people coming through our doors. Also, you could tell people were relieved to get away this summer and while still spending conservatively, definitely let their hair down a bit and took a reprieve from the recession. We only hope the economy is out of the woods by early next year.

However, keep in mind there’s still plenty reasons to visit Lake George in these next few months! This weekend is the Adirondack Nationals Car Show, Next Weekend is the Lake George Jazz Festival, the weekend after that is the fabulous Adirondack Balloon Festival with the yummy Taste of the North Country on Sunday. Then in October, the first weekend is the can’t miss Country’s largest garage sale in Warrensburg. Soon after is Columbus Day weekend, which many of us enjoy getting off from work, and then its the perfect time to go “leaf peeping”.

After that, it will be time to Christmas Shop! Don’t forget you all voted us as the best place for wine and best place to shop for gifts on LakeGeorge.com this year — so we’re really hoping to see our customers remember not only our wines and gift certificates for those people in your life, but also our great selection of unique wine-related gifts.

So what’s next for Adirondack Winery? A few things:

– We’re moving some of our less popular wines to a limited availability list and we’re adding a new fruity wine to our list – to be announced soon. We also plan to have special holiday wines.

– We’ve run out of room in our current Lake George location to continue operating how we have been, so we are seriously looking at an expansion to make wine off-premises, which should give us more room in our Lake George location to double the size of the tasting bar and hopefully have some room for private parties as well.

– We’ll start holding events monthly again in October, likely every month through May. Hopefully we’ll have time this year to do some outside wine tasting events as well.

–We’re offering custom holiday wine labels to customers this year — it’s a really neat Christmas / Hanukkah gift idea for your friends or family, as well as for clients, employees, or co-workers.

–We’re trying hard to get liquor stores near our customers to carry our wines. While it’s not easy by any means, I think we’ll get there little by little.

–We’re continuing to try and get our wines into local area restaurants. This season, we secured the Log Jam, Davidson’s Brewery, Mama Riso’s, Adirondack Pub & Brewery, East Cove, Tamarack Inn, Olde Mill Cafe, and Dunham’s Bay Resort. Lake George Steamboat Company and the Boardwalk Restaurant continue to offer our wines as well. However, our efforts were definitely challenged – we still hope to get our wines into many more restaurants. We welcome your help!

- Send us your thoughts!

Sincerely,

Sasha

Read Full Post »

Our view of the Adirondack Balloon Festival 2008

A Balloon in the Adirondack Balloon Festival Sunset

Balloons at Moonglow 2008

This past Thursday through Sunday was the much-anticipated annual event, The Adirondack Balloon Festival. The event brings 90 hot air balloonists from all over to the Glens Falls-Lake George region. On Thursday night, we attended the opening launch at Crandall Park in Glens Falls. Thousands of people were gathered, but it was so windy, not many balloons went off.

 

On Saturday, we were very busy all day long at the Winery, a welcome boon we didn’t expect. The streets were not chock full of people, so we’re thinking part of the reason we were so busy was because visitors to Lake George didn’t have a ton of options for places to visit, as many of the stores and attractions have already closed.

Around 4pm, we turned onto Ridge Road in queensbury, leading to the Airport, and we sat in the car for 1.5 hours to go the couple miles to get to the festival that day. My daughter was so excited to have fun on the bouncy houses, that I couldn’t convince her to turn around. A lot more balloons went off that evening, even though it was still windy; however, there definitely wasn’t 90 balloons like was advertised. The special shape balloons we enjoyed were an Alien, a Polar Bear, A Doggy, and a Lady Bug.

We headed up to Lake George about 7pm to make the “Moon Glow”, an event where a handful of hot air balloons are lit up in the night, attemptedly to music. If we didn’t have our own store and place to park, we would have never made it. It was really pretty to see the balloons light up in a colorful night display, but boy there were so many people. The view would have been best from the Steamboats I think.

Below are some pictures I took:

Read Full Post »