Noteworthy news: Harvest is upon us. More on that later.

Not so noteworthy news: While I was organizing and rummaging through some of my files, and generally just “looking” busy, I came across a dusty old map we had of the vineyard. Many of you probably do not know that Madison Cellars’ vineyard is also an oasis of treasure (and I’m not just talking about our fruit), and has been a favorite of the infamous Mr. Hook himself. Take a look a look and see for yourself!

Many of our little pirate friends have set sail on the Madison Cellar Seas in search of gems, riches, and gold doubloons. Armed with only a sword and a shovel, they have indeed recovered the hidden buried treasures.

While Captain Hook may have moved on, this Map will still be helpful as we navigate you through the Harvest Season.

We will be harvesting our Merlot this weekend, or as the more conservative types like to say, ‘block 4′, or ‘block 5′, or whatever block it is. As you can see on the map, the Merlot is planted in the heart of the vineyard, intersected only by the Protected Channel or the driveway (again for the more conservative types). We will begin (or shall I say “they”)will begin at 4:00 a.m. Jon will update you on all this in the coming days.

We picked several tons from the Syrah two weeks ago. This will be used in our Rose. Again Jon will post how all this went.

Jon has also convinced me to go digital. So I have retired my old 35 mm. We purchased a digital cam for me which the salesman at Staples assured me was moron-proof! We shall see . . . Unfortunately, I did not get any pics of the Syrah harvest due to the fact that I was in a deep slumber at the time - -I know, I know, that’s dedication for ya!

However, I plan to be up and at ‘em on Saturday - - just not at 4:00 a.m. So as Jon updates you I hope to have some cool photos for you to view too!

Margie

Many moons ago, Jon and a distributor we were working with at the time put the pressure on me to write Madison Cellars’ “bio”. Every attempt I made did not satisfy either one. Finally, one day Jon looked at me in frustration and said “just write the truth.” And in equal frustration, I responded.

As you all know, there’s and old adage in writing — write what you know. So I applied this well-known method when I composed my fine piece of literature. It’s been sitting on the cutting room floor for years. I finally agreed that it was high time that we shared it with you
all.

But first, let me share this with you: many of our friends, family and associates, have told us that we’re stuck in “tradition” — and that’s not entirely who we are — they told us that we need to express our “other” fun side and let it be seen through Madison Cellars’ website and image.

I thought “tradition” was what everyone wanted. Apparently, I was wrong (doesn’t happen often). Many of you (and you know who you are) have been begging me to post this. So for you all, here it is in the exact form that it was presented to Jon in (by the way, it was great to see him laugh so hard and for so long). I hope you can see the humor that comes out of stress and frustration:

Jon & Margie’s Bio

The reason why we’re in this business is because I like wine a lot and I have an ego the size of a house and think I can make better wine than anyone else with absolutely no experience. My wife is just along for the ride and the free wine.

I have no idea why we named it Madison Cellars, I guess just because it sounded good at the time and for lack of a better name. We like the name now though and are glad we thought of it.

I hope to sell a lot of wine and make a lot money. Because that’s really my passion - MONEY. I like the grapes and the vineyard and all that too, but I really like money much more. So I really hope I succeed.

Please tell a friend about us—that way I can make more money.

We hope you all had a laugh. In this business, you need to laugh often!

Anyways, we are planning alot of fun and exciting things for our website, so please stay tuned! We also owe a very special thanks to our secret webmaster as we could not have gotten this far without her!

As always, we welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.

Live well, love much, laugh often!

Margie

Welcome to the Madison Cellars wine blog site. We are excited to be getting things going on our new website. I personally want to share with you some of the more detailed things that go on at our winery/vineyard. So I will be writing about them as they occur.

As many of you may know we have had a tough few years. We have had to move back and forth from Paso Robles but we are back and ready to move out on our marketing efforts.

You will see that we are changing our look a bit on our new bottlings as of the ‘04 year. This wines won’t get released until fall but stay tuned. We will be bottling them next month.

The vineyard is, how shall I say it, “au naturel.” As many of you know we use sustainable farming practices… maybe too much this year. The rains brought extra weed growth and the vineyard looks more like a jungle at the moment. I have been mowing daily to get the weeds down before they go to seed. And of course my allergies are acting up. Yes, I am allergic to my own vineyard.

Anyways, I think this year will be a good year for growing quality grapes. The extra rain this winter gave us a great start and the heat has been minimal so far.

Let me know what you think of the new website look and layout. Hopefully you will find it more user friendly and more useful. Also, if you have topics you would like to hear about in my weekly blog, send me a suggestion and let me know. I will do my best to address your requests.

Drink to your health,

Jon