Let the Spring Season Flourish!

If you’re like me, you got your hopes up when Puxatony Phil predicted that an early Spring was on its way! And if you’re like me, each additional snowfall makes you more and more stir crazy! Cabin Fever has officially set in and I can’t help but look forward to spring!

While summer is the season that most of you associate us with, springtime at Adirondack Winery is one of the most exciting times of the year! It means a new, seasonal wine, free tasting events and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Lake George. It is a teaser of what’s to come in the summer months ahead.

Season’s Flourish (Pomegranate Zinfandel) is Back!

Many of you wait all year for our Spring wine, Season’s Flourish, to hit the shelves, and don’t worry, it is right on schedule! If you are one of our wine club members, you will  be the first to enjoy this seasonal, Pomegranate Zinfandel! A fan favorite, this easy-drinking, tart and slightly spicy-sweet red wine will leave you wanting more, so it is best to stock up while you can, since it only comes around once a year! Season’s Flourish is out!

Free Wine Tasting Event March 16th & 17th!

Itching to get out? Relieve Your Cabin Fever, FREE Wine Tasting Event on St. Patrick’s Day weekend (Sat. 3/16 11:30a – 5:30p & Sun. 3/17 11:30a – 4p)! Always a fun event, it will take place during Lake George’s Shamrock the Block celebrations! Stop into the Tasting Room to see us for free tastes of your favorite wines and gourmet foods while enjoying the St. Patrick’s Day parade and festivities on Lower Amherst Street.

Red Carriage (Cranberry Chianti) Won Gold!

While you are here, it is a great time to check out some of the new things we have at the winery and maybe even try some wines you haven’t tried yet… if there are any left! Have you tried our Red Carriage yet? This cranberry Chianti is our newest gold-medal winner! Entered among more than 800 other wines from wineries across the country, we are proud to announce that Red Carriage brought home a gold medal from the 2013 Florida State Fair International Wine Competition!

Adirondack Winery’s NEW Big Red Wine Glass!

With an upgraded tasting, you can now try our wines in our new, bigger, red wine glass!  What’s that you say? You haven’t seen our NEW Big Red Wine Glass! Most of you that collect our wine glasses know that we change our wine glass logo color each year. Well, this year, it’s silver; but we have added a big red wine glass as an option too! For an additional $2 on your tasting session, you can take home our Big Red Wine Glass – that’s right, only $2.00 extra – It holds almost a full bottle of wine and is a great quality, too!

AND NOW FOR THE BIGGEST NEWS OF SPRING FOR ADIRONDACK WINERY!

Olivia Kay Brown born 2/28/13

Our Marketing Coordinator, Danielle Brown, is out on Maternity Leave! On February 28, 2013 she became the proud Mama of her first child, Olivia Kay Brown! Darling Olivia was born healthy and happy at 8lbs, 8oz and 21 inches long!

Danielle is doing well at home with Olivia, relishing this time. She will return in May, and until then, you will see us slacking a little bit on our email newsletters, blog posts, social media posts, and more. Danielle does so much she is missed!

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Our Wine Glasses Have Runneth Over! A Look Back on 2012, With Gratitude.

As we reflect back on yet another great year here at Adirondack Winery, we realize that we have so much to be thankful for. With new awards and new employees, as well as customers, both new and old visiting us again and again, each year seems to be better than the last and 2012 was no different.

We welcomed tens of thousands of customers to the Tasting Room in 2012 and are thankful to our loyal customers who return time and time again as well as our new customers that gave us a chance to please their palates! From sharing your positive experiences with us on Trip Advisor and Facebook to requesting us on your local liquor store shelves, you are the reason we continue to grow and love the business that we are in.

Our customers have become our friends over the years and we love that you are able to share in our milestones and allow us to be a part of yours. We celebrated our 4^th Anniversary this year with some of our closest customers and friends, since you are the reason we are able to keep bringing you your favorite locally-made, hand-crafted wines year after year. We celebrated with games, delicious wine-infused foods and of course, tastes of Adirondack Winery wines! We look forward to celebrating year 5 with all of you in 2013!

We love seeing all of your pictures on Facebook of your visits to the Tasting Room and how you have incorporated Adirondack Winery into your holidays, family gatherings or just Friday nights at home with your friends and loved ones. It is so great to be able to see our wines in the homes of the people that love them the most!

Some of you have even allowed us to be a part of the most important days of your lives. More and more of you have given us the opportunity to have our wines on your tables as favors and gifts at your weddings this year. We are glad to see that so many of you find our custom-labeled wine to be a classy and personal touch to your wedding day that not only provides your guests with delicious wine, but a personalized keepsake to remember your special day. We are thankful to all of our brides for allowing us to share in such an important day in your lives.

We have had so much fun celebrating bachelorette parties with many of you as well! With tastes of our wines, cheese, a hand-painted bridal glass & custom-labeled bottle of wine, we have created a party package that gives you a fun “last outing” with your closest girlfriends as well as a keepsake to remember it!

Many of you don’t live nearby, which used to cause Adirondack Winery withdrawals after the summer season, but thanks to more of you that are shopping online and requesting us in your local liquor stores, there is more access than ever to your favorite wines!

We can finally please our NJ & MI customers year-round! We recently added Michigan and New Jersey to our list of states we can ship to, allowing us to now ship wine directly to 21 states! For those of you who do not live in those states, our online partners, WeSpeakWine.com, EmpireWine.com and Exit9WineandLiquor.com can ship to many of you.

In addition to our online partners, we are thankful for our wholesalers who continue to support us and provide our customers with their favorite wines year-round. With their help and our wonderful customers who have asked for (& some demanded) our wines be carried at these stores, we are able to reach more of you each year.

Some new awards can be added to our list of achievements in 2012 as well. Our Pinot Grigio, Semillon and Strawsling won us 3 silver medals at the World Value Wine Challenge while Cabernet Franc brought home the silver in the American Wine Society. Our Wild Red, Blue Twilight and Gewurztraminer are some of the other wines that added to our collection of Bronze medals as well!

Our employees have also played an indispensable role in our success this year. Thank you to our knowledgeable & fun Tasting Room staff, Maryellen, our dependable Tasting Room Director who is the backbone of our excellent customer service and who keeps our store running smoothly; Danielle, our creative and friendly Marketing Assistant whom without we would have no blogs, Facebook posts, emails, parties or custom-labeled wine services! Last but not least, we would like to thank Brad, our Assistant Wine Maker and Richard Pardy (Mike’s dad), who work diligently and with great care behind the scenes, helping Mike to make award-winning wines & keep the wine flowing!

Thank you to all who continue to play a part in the success of Adirondack Winery. We look forward to 2013 and bringing you the wines and experiences you have come to know and love here at the Tasting Room.

Cheers!
Sasha & Mike

 

As we look forward to 2013, we are starting the year with a clear mission and value statement that we hope communicates our vision of what Adirondack Winery is now and wants to be.

Adirondack Winery

“Selection is our Specialty; Taste is our Priority”

MISSION STATEMENT

At Adirondack Winery, our mission as a small, family-owned business is to provide our customers with delicious, award-winning, quality wines that are all hand-crafted locally. We provide an unparalleled selection of wines with something to satisfy every palate, from unique fruit-infused wines to traditional white and red varietals and more! Our ultimate goal is for Adirondack Winery customers to hold us close to their hearts as the best, most memorable winery they have ever crossed paths with.

VALUE STATEMENT

We will accomplish our mission by adhering to the following values:

Customer Relationships:

• We treat our customers as we would good friends, combining accurate, timely, dependable and exceptional customer service with a friendly rapport and welcoming atmosphere.

Wine Experience:

• We invite our customers to join us in our journey through wine enjoyment, providing a wine tasting experience that is relaxing, fun and educational. We are proud that we foster many non-wine drinkers into wine learners and then wine lovers through this experience; Becoming as much a part of the customers’ lives as they are a part of ours.

Love Local:

• We aim to support our local area. We do this through sharing the beauty of the Adirondacks with visitors from all over via the local photography on our labels; by providing a wine experience that brings customers back to the region time and time again; and by donating to local charitable causes.

Continuous Improvement:

• We are dedicated to the continuous growth and development of our people and business. We are consistently working to improve our wines and customer experience, as well as working to increase the availability and awareness of Adirondack Winery’s products and services to the general public.

Wine Making Passion:

• Adirondack Winery believes that great wine-making starts with a passion for wine. We have successfully translated our passion into a business we love and are proud of.   We take pride in selecting the best ingredients and using a traditional, hands-on approach to wine making that is guided by our talented winemaker every step along the process.   It is our dedication to quality and process that results in our outstanding, award-winning wines that can be enjoyed by everyone!

 

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Adirondack Winery’s 2nd Anniversary Event Review

On April 16 and 17, 2010, Adirondack Winery celebrated its Second Anniversary! We’re on to our third summer season in Lake George!

The last two years have gone better than we expected. Every day, new faces come into the winery, while at the same time, we are fortunate to keep so many of our customers coming back over and over again, even from far distances! We never thought our wine list would be more than 40 wines long, either!

To celebrate our second anniversary, we held two exclusive night events for our Inner Circle members on Friday, April 16 and Saturday, April 17, 2010. Our store capacity is pretty small, so both events sold out and we are happy to report that we had nearly 100% attendance!

Attendees were treated to quite a delicious hand-prepared menu to pair with our wines…incorporating the Stonewall Kitchen foods and Grafton Village Cheddar Cheeses that we sell. The menu included Bourbon Molasses Crab Cakes, Maple Chipotle Chicken Chili, Bruschetta, Garlic Cheddar Bread, Gewurztraminer Cheddar Fondue, Garlic Onion Meatballs, and scrumptious desserts including decadent brownies that should be illegal, cheesecake with blueberry and raspberry jam, cranberry cheddar cheese bread, and lots of hand-made chocolate. Oh and I forgot to mention Wine Ice Cream! If you’d like a glimpse at these delicious recipes, go here.

Aside from great food, attendees enjoyed the debut of a couple new wines, two full wine tasting sessions, a great music playlist, meeting new friends, and more! We played the “guess that wine game”…which I greatly commend the few that guessed correctly as its even difficult for us with the length of our wine list!

Last, throughout both nights we gave away several prizes. There are 6 people out there that can say they were fortunate enough to win an Adirondack Winery wine club members, a case of wine and $50 gift certificates! We also gave away some wine racks, t-shirts, and wine candles.

Aside from this exclusive event, we also held 3 days of free wine tasting events during the day at the winery. It was great!

So, straight from Mike & Sasha, we really enjoyed visiting with all of you during our Anniversary weekend and couldn’t be more pleased to hear that you enjoyed the wine, food and had a great time. We’ll have to figure out some way to expand the event next year!

If you attended our Anniversary events and have some feedback to share, we’d love to hear it here….

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Adirondack Winery’s Summer is over, New Wines on the Horizon

Hi Everyone,

Adirondack Winery's Customer Appreciation Wine Tasting Event

Sorry it’s been so darn long since my last post, I have just been so busy lately and just a bit worn out from this summer and fall; which by the way, Thanks so much to all of you for making it another great season for us!

First, I want to remind everyone that WE ARE OPEN ALL YEAR ROUND – Click here to check our website for hours.

Hopefully, I’ll see some of you THIS WEEKEND at our first Wine Tasting Event of the off-season: Click here to see it on Facebook. When: Sat. Oct 24 11a – 6p AND Sun. Oct. 25 11a – 3p Where: Adirondack Winery, 285 Canada St., Lake George, NY (Located directly across from Shepard Park near the corner of Amherst Street).

Keeping your Adirondack Winery souvenir wine glass is paying off! Bring in one of the Adirondack Winery branded wine glasses you’ve kept around the house to enjoy a few wine tastings ON US! Never been to Adirondack Winery before or didn’t keep your souvenir wine glass? You can still get a FREE taste of our wine of the week, plus four more tastes of our wines for just a nominal fee! Only one past wine glass can be redeemed for one set of free tastings per repeat customer only.

Stonewall Kitchen fine foods, Grafton Village cheddar cheese & more out for sampling, too!

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Well, onto the good stuff! We have some brand new wines coming out that we’ve been working on for some time now. I think they will add something new and different to our wine list and we hope you will give them a try.

Serene White (Kiwi Melon Pinot Grigio)

First off is our newest fruity wine: Serene White, which is a Kiwi Melon Pinot Grigio. I think everyone is going to really love this wine, especially all the fans of our Strawsling.

Here are the tasting notes for this wine: “This light bodied white wine captures the mouth watering flavors of freshly cut honeydew melon and juicy watermelon. Perfectly balanced with tones of tart kiwi fruit, this easy drinking wine boasts a deliciously fresh fruity finish. Pairing suggestions fish or chicken,
mild cheeses, creamy desserts and ice cream.”

The photograph on the label was taken by my wife, Sasha, aboard the Lac du Saint Sacrament, and features the gorgeous blue hues of Lake George on a clear July day.

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Afterglow Red (Mulled Wine)

Our second new wine is perfect for the chilly Holiday Season — “Afterglow Red”, which is a Mulled Wine! Some of you may have sampled mulled wine from us last year, which was made using our regular wines with a mulled wine spice packet in a crock pot, which filled the winery with irresistible smells. Our customers enjoyed that wine so much, that we made one right in the bottle for this year that you can just open, warm and pour! This is a limited release wine, however, so when it sells out, we won’t make any more of it until next year. I of course, get to taste the wines early, and I can tell you I already really love it, so just to let everyone know I have already reserved two bottle for myself! (winemaker’s luxury ) )

Here are the tasting notes for Afterglow Red: “Enjoy the inviting aromas and comforting taste of our warm, spiced mulled wine on a cold day. This rich, sweet wine has delightful notes of cinnamon, cloves, allspice and orange peel. Best warmed on a stove over medium-low heat until steaming, this wine should be served hot alongside dried fruits, nuts, spiced breads or cookies. Take it up a notch by dropping in a few raisins and almonds, or give it more pizzazz with a splash of your favorite Port, Amaretto, Schnapps, or liqueur.” Mmmmmm…..:)

Later on, we’ll tell you more about some more limited release wines coming out between winter and spring…Raspberry Merlot…Raspberry White Zinfandel…Port…Cabernet Sauvignon… so keep your eye out!

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Last, the Holidays are approaching so quickly I can’t believe it! Remember us when you think about what to get people for gifts for Christmas or as your plan your holiday parties…. You did vote us the #1 Best Place to Shop for Gifts in Lake George! And You don’t have to come to the winery to buy out great gifts – they’re all available on our online store by clicking here!

I hope everyone has a great week and hopefully I will get more consistent with my posts now….

– Mike

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It’s Been too Long

Hi everyone! First, I would like to start with it’s been way to long since my last post! In fact, it’s been so long that I can’t even remember when it was, so I thought I would give a bit of a recap of life at the winery these days.

It’s Summer (sort of), so we are now open 7 days a week from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm. While this makes for some really long days for us, we are thrilled customers are coming in during all those hours! As some of you may know, when you locate any business in a seasonal tourist town, if the people are here, you need to be open!

The good news is that our business is holding up pretty well – we have been battling both the economy and maybe even more important — the weather! We can’t do much about either, so with a little planning and some creativity, we have been able to survive pretty well.

We are always asked about new wines, and we do have plans for a couple of more this year. Unfortunatly, in order to accomodate these new wines, we will be allowing a few of our wines to sell out. But don’t fret – if one of your favorite wines sells out; it will be brought back at various times of the year, so you will still have the chance to purchase them. Keep checking back here for updates on our new wines, or even better, join our Inner Circle email newsletter list to hear about new and returning wines (and other good stuff) directly in your inbox! We are not ready yet to announce new wines, but the first one will be announced shortly.

Recently, we won some awards for our wines and our wine labels. We were very happy to see that our Chardonnay won Bronze at the International Finger Lakes Wine Competition and our Pinot Noir won Silver at the International Eastern Wine Competion. Of Course, we are proud to have won and hope there will be many more to come! Also our series of labels featuring Autumn scenes in Lake George (Sauvignon Blanc, Sangiovese, Zinfandel, and Viognier) won an Honorable Mention (equivalant to second place) at the Roses and Sonnenberg Label Competion.

Also, we’re happy to say that there are a number of area restaurants that are now offering our wines on their menus including: The Lake George Steamboat Company, The Boardwalk Restaurant, The Tamarack Inn, The Olde Mill Cafe, Mama Riso’s, Adirondack Brew Pub, and Davidson Bros. Brewery! Please be sure to support these great establishments and have a glass of wine while you’re there!

For those of you in the Danbury, CT area or in Dutchess County, Caffrey’s Wine and Spirits in Fishkill NY is the sole wine store we currently have; and we’ve already heard feedback that are customers are visiting the store to buy our wines and we hope its close enough for some CT residents to make the trip! If you’d like to see us in a wine store near you, the best way to make it happen is for our customers to request the wine store owner order our wines, so we definitely welcome your assistance in that category!

Well, that is about it for today and I really am sorry for the long break, I will try really hard to post at least 2 times a month during the summer and fall. Until next time have a great week!

– Mike

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Adirondack Winery’s 1st Anniversary in Review

This past weekend we celebrated our 1st Anniversary at Adirondack Winery, with a weekend of events, prizes, food and most importantly — wine!

Mike & Sasha Pardy, Co-Owners

First and foremost, Sasha and I would like to thank everyone who came out to see us this weekend, as well as everyone who has visited us over the last year. We had a very successful first year and we are looking forward to another great year with some new wines, new products, lots of fun and our eyes on the future.

On Saturday night, we had a closed door event for our Inner Circle members – it was a great night and we had over 50 members (the limit of our space capacity) attend for a night of free food, drinks and fun. It was really nice to see people come out and celebrate with us. Thanks goes out to all that attended this event and congratulations to all those people who won some great raffle prizes! (We wanted to have pictures to share, but were so busy attending the event, that we completely forgot to take them!)

On Friday we had free cheese and crackers as well as a free white wine tasting. The weather was great and we had a great turn out.

Saturday during the day we had free cheese, chocolates and red wine. The weather wasn’t as good as Friday but we still had a good turn out and we even had a few visits from some very familiar faces.

Melissa and Korrey, two of our great tasting bar employees

Sunday was our chocolate and dessert wine pairing day. This was one of my favorites from the weekend. We had a free dessert wine tasting, and lots of chocolate and sweets out to taste with them. I’ll admit I did “try” a few of the chocolates, including truffles we had made with our wine infused in them (cab sav, chardonnay, and ice wine), and they were very enjoyable!

Also, we treated our customers to free samples of a new product we’re carrying – Mercer’s Wine Ice Cream – We’ve got their “A La Port”, “Riesling”, “Raspberry Chardonnay”, and Peach White Zinfandel flavors. We’re going to have to try real hard not to consume all of the stock ourselves. These ice cream’s really taste like wine and have about 5% alcohol in them!

Bill and Deb Prime, two great customers!

Overall it was a fun weekend and it was great way to start our summer season. We both look forward to another gsuccessful season in Lake George. We can’t think of a better place to enjoy the summer and more importantly a better place to enjoy some great wine.

Until next time have a great week and enjoy the great weather this weekend!

–Mike

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Explanation of White Wine “Snow Flakes”, “Crystals”, “Wine Diamonds”

Wine Diamonds or Crystals in a Bottle

Hello Everyone! This week I thought I would answer a question that comes up a lot in the winery, “What is that stuff in my wine?”. What people are really asking is, what are the white crystals (sometimes called snow flakes or “wine diamonds”) in my wine? Well here is the explanation.

Wine is made up of many different compounds and one of these compounds is acid. This acid comes primarily in two different forms: tartaric and malic. Malic is found in many different fruits while tartaric is mostly found in grapes.

Some of the tartaric acid can further be broken down into another form, called potassium bitartrate, which is also know as “cream of tartar”. Because this acid is only partially soluble (meaning it doesn’t completely dissolve in wine even though initially it may appear to), it eventually crystallizes and begins falling out of the wine over time. This process can be sped up by low temperatures, which is what you see in the bottom of some of our white wine bottles.

Tartrate crystals can sometimes accumulate in the bottom of bottles or on the underside of corks. These are naturally occurring and are not a fault.

Sometimes I will hear the follow up statement of “I have never seen it in any other wine except yours” which probably, for most of us, is true.

The reason you do not see this too often is that most wineries put their white wines through a process called “cold stabilization”, where the wine is chilled for about two weeks at temperatures close to freezing. This process speeds up the the crystalization process and after the wine is filtered, there will be no more wine crystals in the wine and most importantly, no customers asking “what are these crystals in my wine?” Most wineries would cold stabilize wines just to avoid that one question.

There is a couple of reasons why we choose not to cold stabilize our wines. First, if we cold stabilize, we could alter the taste and quality of our product. Secondly, we believe in minimal processing of our wine, which means limiting as much as possible anything that is not 100% neccesary to make our products. Finally, cold stabilizing is very energy intensive and we try, for the sake of the enviorment (and our wallets) to keep our energy impact low.

What we tell people is to decant the wine or use a filtered pourer (we sell Haley’s Corkers) before drinking if you are concerned about the crystals in the wine. BUT REST ASSURED, THERE IS NO REASON TO BE CONCERNED WITH INGESTING THOSE CRYSTALS.

I hope that answers some of your questions about the snowflakes and until next week have a great week!

–Mike

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What a Winter Carnival!

Hey everyone!

What a great winter carnival we had this year. The weather was great, there was ice and snow and plenty of people came out this year to have a great time! Again we are very happy with the number of familiar faces who visited us for the first time since the fall.

Even in a town where the majority of the people who walk through our doors have never been into our store before, we have started to develop a family of customers who not only purchase our products but provide us with a little bit of the “Cheers” feeling. You know, “Cheers, where everybody knows your name!” I can hear the tune now…. (For anyone who knows me, they know I can’t remember a name to save my life but I can usually remember what they bought, where you stood and sometimes what you were wearing the last time you were in, even if it was months ago. So please don’t hold me to the everyone knows your name quote!)

Here’s some updates on our winery happenings.

- We finally have all 31 of our wine varietals in stock and in most cases have a substantial inventory of each wine.

- We have hired a part-time sales rep to start selling our wine to local restraunts. We hope to have a pretty good list of locations by Summer, so check out our website for details.

- We will be having a free wine tasting on March 14th, with free samples of Grafton Village Cheddar cheese and Chocolate Gecko chocolate and Stonewall Kitchen goodies as well.

- Keep an eye out for our anniversary promotion in the late part of March and April. It’s been a great year for us and we intend to celebrate a bit more than usual! We hope to continue our success into the next year, bucking the economic trend. We know that our succsess is based on two very important things: Great wine and Great customers that like to drink it!

Last but not least, I started to notice that spring is around the corner! I heard birds today that I believe to be Robins, but I didn’t see them. Also some of the trees have buds on them! Yes it’s a bit early for buds on the trees but at least it’s a good sign!

– Mike

Thanks for reading and please drink responsibly

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