To our email mailing list,

I remember in one of my very few stops in Corporate America, I worked with some folks who chided subordinates endlessly, especially in meetings, when they made mistakes.  I found that to be an especially odd and peculiar, yet fascinating behavior pattern.  I would only have to assume that their actions were designed so that everyone could see the fault that one made, and how those mistakes shouldn't be made again.  However, what I observed was a severe reduction in risk taking and a desire to no longer openly share ideas in business case situations.  What does any of this have to do with this email.  PLENTY. And yesterday I saw the reaction!  As Laura stated last night at dinner, "Well, I guess we won't see any of the regular customers until then."  Hmmm...Yep, I set that up great...Funny enough, the staff and I got a lot of pruning done in the vineyard yesterday.  The emails lit up on the wine classes, but you're waiting for the 14th and 15th wine sale!  We announced it early to give you time to plan.  Now, you're waiting to come out.  I suppose if I was in Corporate America, I would have been placed on a good ol' Performance Improvement Plan...ahhh.  Funny enough though, you learn the most and improve the most by making mistakes, so in order not to throw this weekend into the tanker we're going to start the Shermaggeddon Wine Sale today and run it through the 15th of January!  To repeat it, since we have a few new subsribers, our normal discounts are 5% at 3 bottles, 10% at 6 bottles, 15% at 12 bottles and 20% at 24 bottles.  Between now and the 15th, add an additional 10% off for 6 bottles and a very nice 20% off for 12 and 24 bottles.  Snow is not in the forecast, so come on out and perhaps stroll the vineyards in January!

For the new folks, we rarely ever have a wine sale, as this is our second one ever.  We think our wines are already a good value, with no sugar added for our sweet wines and barrel aging and blending for many of our drier wines.

Additionally, I mentioned a few other nice topics:

Wine Appreciation Class: February 11th and 18th:
Ahh…welcome back classmates to another session of our well attended series of Wine Appreciation Classes centered around Valentines Day.  I think the theme of these two classes will be “the innate appreciation of wine.”  I’m going to dive into the chemistry but in an easy to explain way!  Plan for your taste buds to be aroused as we’ll not only dive deep into Turtle Run wines, but some of the finest vintages in the world.  Keeping with "Shermageddon", though the bridge will hopefully be open by then, we will discount the class to $35 per person and limit it to 34 folks per session.  Reservations required.  Alert taste buds required!  Enjoyment absolutely required!  Learning optional!  Nah—required. 

Winter Weather Prediction:
I didn't send anything out in my November newletter, simply because I forgot.  Or I got long winded.  Expect the warm trend to continue on and on and...on until friggin' March.  There's plenty of cold air in the artic, but the jet stream, courtesy of a La Nina, is keeping it low.  I am thinking this is going to break around mid-March, and if so, we could expect some very cold air moving into here around then.  Let's pray and hope that our vines don't wake up too early, or we're in trouble.  If this does indeed occur, look for a moderately hot and dry summer to follow.  Do not expect the same record rainfall in 2012 that we saw in 2011.

Cheers,