The Vyneskeller is open seven days a week from 1 - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday it is be self service - you can buy everything you need upstairs in the tasting room (wine, cheese, crackers) and take it with you downstairs to the patio or out to the picnic tables. Saturday and Sunday is business as usual with our full staff.
June Specials:
Wine of the Month - Blueberry, additional 10% off
3 Pack of the Month - 3 DiVyne Red for $25.
*available at winery only; 3 pack cannot be combined with other offers
Upcoming Events and Farmers Markets
June 12 and 19 - Macungie Farmer's Market, 4-7pm
June 21 & 22 - Split Rock Wine Festival
The Great Tastes of Pennsylvania Wine & Food Festival is held annually on resort grounds during the beautifully inviting summertime. This two-day, outdoor festival features musical entertainment, many of Pennsylvania's finest wineries, and a wide selection of food and craft vendors. Educational seminars are held during festival hours. Come experience everything you loved about wine fest past and all the great new things happening this year. Noon to 6 pm both days.
June 25 - Wine and Wholesome Food Cafe Event
Join us Wednesday evening in Kutztown for a wine and pairing from Wholesome Food Cafe from 5- 7 pm. $10 per person
June 26 - Macungie Farmer's Market, 4-7 pm
June 29 - Vineyard & Winery Tour
Jazz Sunday - Vineyard & Winery tour begins at noon. $5 per person. Tour should wrap up just in time to enjoy some live Jazz music in the Vyneskeller from 1 - 4 pm.
Glass Half Empty
by Malachi Duffy
I was just rereading the Glass Half Empty column I wrote for last June and it was about some of the projects we had recently completed or were underway. It ended with the last big project to be completed for the year, a new bottling line that would hopefully be twice as fast and use screw caps.
Well, 12 months later the new bottling line is in. We now have four wines under screw cap and have an aggressive bottling schedule in place to try to get the 2013 wines in the bottle before the 2012 vintage sells out.
We have had a lot of questions about why we chose to switch from a synthetic cork to screw caps. The answer is pretty simple. It is THE BEST closure for us and the style of wine we make. Every closure has its weakness. Natural cork can be tainted with TCA, so a certain percentage of your wine may be bad and there isn't anything you can do about it. To combat this inconsistency, we switched to a synthetic cork many years ago. Synthetic cork has been great for us but is does have a downside. It lets a little bit of oxygen into the bottle and over time the wine will oxidize. With synthetic corks we are able to guarantee our white wines for two-to-three years and our reds for five years (because red wines are better at protecting themselves against oxygen).
We wanted to have a longer shelf life for both our red and white wines. Screw caps solve all the above problems and offer an easier way to open the bottle of wine. While screw caps do let in some oxygen, it is MUCH less than that of a natural or synthetic cork. This will allow us to guarantee our whites for up to five years and reds up to 10 years (probably much longer).
Screw caps may diminish the drama and romance opening a bottle but it is well worth the sacrifice to ensure a taint-free wine that offers consistent aging, maintained flavor and freshness with optimum quality control. Quality is Vynecrest's number one concern when producing a wine and the switch to screw caps is another example of of that pursuit.
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