To our wonderful customers and friends,

Typing this email while enjoying a glass of Cabernet Franc 2007, barrel aged for 37 months!  Yes, for those of you new to my emails, I normally have a glass of white wine next to this keyboard.  Our Indiana grown chardonnay was a clear standout at the Indy International Wine Competition this month, and of course if I spy a little extra Vignoles or Catherine’s Blend, with their delicious tropical fruit notes, the temptation to type and sip with any of these wines is certainly a pleasurable thought.  However, there is something truly special about our newly bottled 2007 Cabernet Franc.

In 2007, I really wanted to create some wines with massive tannins!!   Zinfandel 07 comes to mind, as does the Chambourcin 07 as wines with big structure.  The cab franc though, became the poster child of the great tannin vintage of 2007!  I distinctly remember tasting the wine from the press, and due to the fermentation techniques use, feeling as if the tannins were dissolving the enamel from my teeth.  I thought, “Yeah, we did it” and “Yeah, from a cash flow standpoint this was stupid.  This wine will take years to age.”  Indeed, it did.  After a whopping 37 months in barrels, the wine finally makes its debut.  But not just any barrels…

Upon opening the bottle, you’ll discover a rich vanilla note on the backend.  Up front, firm tannins, and deep and inviting tightly wound fruit explode across the entire spectrum of the mouth.  Tannins, pepper, cherry and delicious oak that seems to have evolved within the grapes themselves make their presence known.  The tannins, fruit and oak slowly and gradually fade into the sunset during the everlasting finish.  Truly a spectacular wine!

As an artisan winery, we can cleverly craft our wines in ways that the big wineries simply will not try.  I’ll go out on a strong hunch that you won’t find any recently bottled 2007 wines at your favorite liquor store.  Simply put, it’s too expensive and too daring of a move for the large wineries.  As the oak imparted into wines has transferred from barrels to oak adjunct products, the flavors developed in barrels, and specifically older barrels in their 3rd and 4th use, are simply treasures of bygone days that we nurture here.   At Turtle Run, this is our passion – to deliver exceptional quality wine that goes with food and friends, which means using our older barrels to craft wines with amazing layers upon layers of flavors that oak adjuncts cannot provide, is something we do and we’ll always do.   A great parallel in this thought is the making of a pot of chili.  Oak adjuncts are like throwing ingredients in at 5:00 and serving it at 6:00.  If I was making chili, I’d start it the day before, and let those ingredients simmer together to develop a wide array of dazzling flavors.  I’d put it in the refrigerator and reheat it another day, then serve it.  That’s our Cabernet Franc 2007 – days old simmering chili – delicious!

This wine is not on the tasting list and may never make it onto the list.   It, like the merlot, is available for tasting and for sales, but you have to ask for these wines.  Could we be developing a secret library list?  Yep!  But you know about it because you were willing to share your email address with us.  Jim’s Barrel white wine, a barrel aged bomb-shell blend of vignoles and traminette was the first wine to start the Library Club.  Now, two more are in.   Yes, Jim’s Barrel is available too!

Additional new wines:

Christine and I tasted barrels a couple weeks ago and decided to add our 2010 cabernet sauvignon and leave our 2009 in the barrels.  The 2010 has incredible, sensuous softness with gorgeously smooth cherry-berry notes.  You’ll love the bright fruit and roundness in this wine.  Basically, we’re delivering a classic cab!

White Chambourcin 2010: As soon as the labels are printed, this wine hits the shelves.  Very much a reminder of our 2008, this wine has brilliant color, nice strawberry, cherry, and apple notes, and is delightfully sweet, but not overly sweet for a great blush wine.

Lost My Mind: All I can say is, WOW!  My former assistant winemaker, Bruce, and I created a wine years ago through blending some left over tasting room bottles.  Coined “Wapatooee” as in “Wow..wee…zoieee” (yeah, sometime we utter some of the strangest sounds when we like some new fangled creation), we finally bottled this gem of a white???  A blush???  A red???  I have no clue.  It’s mainly a white wine, but it’s not white…hmmm…”Wow..wee…zoiee, I have no clue!  I must have lost my mind, hence the name.   What is Lost My Mind, since some of you must be thinking the Cabernet Franc 2007 has some “other” properties in it as my typing has sailed off on some strange tangent (actually finished the glass and reverted to Darjeeling Tea), a darling of a sweeter wine with incredible notes of pineapple, apricot, citrus, lemon zest, perhaps lime, grapefruit, and a distinctive slight grape note.  Relying solely on the natural sweetness of grapes, you taste the sweetness up front with the wine’s finish being clean and refreshing.  Dubbed “Edge Relief” for now, the wine awaits its new labels.  We just couldn’t resist getting this wine out because our fall concert series is set to fire up again.

Fall Concert Series:

Please continue to check our website, www.turtlerunwinery.com, Facebook, and Twitter, for updates on our concert series, as we have a few dates in flux.  As they are now, here is the list of bands that will be joining us.  Please feel free to bring a picnic.  Please do not bring any other alcoholic beverage as we could get in serious, serious trouble, even to the point of losing our license to operate.   All concerts are on Sunday, and begin around 1:30 and end around 5:30, give or take, depending upon the band.

Labor Day Sunday, September 4th: The Ron Jones Jazz Quartet! Ahh….jazz at it’s very, very best!  Relax with Ron, Sonny, Bruce, and Keith as they entice you with an incredible array of classic jazz.

Sunday, September 11th:  The Vinyl Kings will be rocking Turtle Run Winery.  We are going to do something special in memory of the 2001 terrorist attach, with more details to follow.  Lee, Rick, Joe and Mike will be playing some of the great classics of rock.  We’ve grown with this band over the years, and they never sounded better than the last time they were here in July.

Sunday, September 18th:  TBA

Sunday, September 25:  The Monarchs! Get your dancing shoes out (or  just dance barefoot on the lawn, as The Monarchs will get you going by playing some great, great classics and newer music too. A very, very popular band!

Sunday, October 2nd:  Bomar and Ritter: Relax to the intoxicating sounds from Mary Bomar and John Ritter.  Contemporary folk to pop is their style, so come out and relax with two of the best musicians in the area!

Sunday, October 9th:  Melody Resurrection: Back to Rock-n-Roll we go with a 60’s rock and blues theme.  Good guys, excellent music!

Sunday, October 16th:  Circus: Who is Circus?  A great, great touring band from the 1980’s is heading to Turtle Run Winery!  From country (Keith Urban, Brad Paisley) to pop (Hall and Oates, Michael Jackson) to Rock (Beatles, Rolling Stones), to rhythm (Commodores, Stevie Wonder) to everything else (Spinners, Elvis, Jackson Browne), you’ll hear an eclectic blend of great music all day, by fabulous veteran artists.

Sunday, October 23rd:  Lick Creek Band: Eclectic acoustic music with tight vocal harmonies are the distinctive sounds you’ll hear from Alice, Eric and the two Bill’s.  It’s always a pleasure of mine to welcome back the Lick Creek Band!

Sunday, October 30th:  A day of rest….for…

Saturday, November 5th: The Bonfire, The Hayride, The Wood-Fired Grill, The Astronomy, and The Vinyl Kings!!  Yes, an all day, going into the night fun filled day awaits you at Turtle Run Winery. Hayrides throughout the day, perhaps a few in the evening too.  The music – a tradition with the Vinyl Kings…The Woodfired grill – bring a slab of something and cook over the open wood fired grill to your heart’s content.  Warm up by the bonfire that starts around 4:00.  Yes, we’ll definitely have an astrologer out this time, weather permitting.  All in all, a very enjoyable day out in the country at Turtle Run.

Grape Harvest:
We’re starting our harvest this weekend, the 27th of August, with our vignoles harvest.  We rely solely on volunteers and paying charitable organizations for the harvest.  If you would like to come out and join us, we start at 8:00 in the morning and try to wrap things up by noon.  We’ll also pick two more weekends, probably the next two after this one.  

Cheers,