Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[grapeman]

At the risk of putting an incomplete site out there, I am posting a link to my website I am in the process of developing for my vineyard and soon to be winery. It is just in it's infancy and does not have any real content yet. I am just trying to get the functionality going. I would appreciate any looking around you may do to see what you think of the overall structure and additions you would like to see so I might incorporate them.


I have flash buttons on the top left and a menu with buttons on the side. I'm not sure if I want both.


There are a few pictures here and there, some of them are stock photos and some are mine which I will replace as I go.


So here it is:


Hid-In-Pines Vineyard

 

[vcasey]

I suppose if I said going to the beach that may not be what you want to hear..... well when the weather is warm!

 

[AlFulchino]

Rich it has the makings of a great site..i like what you have done so far....and Flash is my next step as soon as i teach myself ( some day )

as for what i do in the winter...who has free time ?

 

[grapeman]

vcasey I think the beach sounds like a great idea, but I think even you might get a bit cool doing that right now!


Al how is the speed for you? It has so much backend stuff that I think it would be non-functional for dialup, but that should be a small market now.

 

[vcasey]

Looks really nice and I thought you were just sitting around looking out the window.

 

[AlFulchino]

my site would also be too slow for dial up...and by the way...remember this...your website, like mine will ALWAYS be incomplete with something new needing to be done all the time

eventually you need to have it say hipvineyards.com and lose the abc drafting....no one will remember that...you should be able to have it point to the site even by using your same server

***

 

[vcasey]

vcasey I think the beach sounds like a great idea, but I think even you might get a bit cool doing that right now!


Al how is the speed for you? It has so much backend stuff that I think it would be non-functional for dialup, but that should be a small market now.

No kidding it was it was 32 at 5:30 this morning and 30 2 hours later when the dog insisted he really had to go out. I refuse to look at the Gulf's water temps - Brrrrrr

I had no problem navigating around the site everything moved quickly from page to page.

 

[grapeman]

Al I spent an hour last evening trying to get the site to point to the shortened URL. When I set up the subdomain I am sure I did it wrong because it isn't showing right on the host server end. I will have a friend check it out when I get closer to spreading the site around. The other sub domain I have names and redirects correctly. The DNS servers are set to redirect, but it still isn't working right. I also have hipvineyard.net and hipvineyard.us registered.


What about the "Bottle of Wine" song and player? Anybody notice that and does the volume come in at 25% like it is supposed to?

 

[AlFulchino]

the sound level is the same as you woul dplay on your tv in a living room.....if you meant it to be backgroundthen i would say its not at 25%...but then again everyone's speakers will beset to a different level

 

[grapeman]

It is supposed to initially be set to 25% volume, but maintains any changes made previously to the settings. If you look at the little Victrola player in the upper left side of the Home Page, there is a little volume control on it that slides up and down. If you move the mouse over it, the number it is set at should appear. I just checked, click on the speaker and then the slide comes up.

 

[grapeman]

I have gotten the Photo Album controls behaving better now. They were pretty crude and some parts not functioning right. I made some changes to the code within it and now it is behaving better. The formatting is better in it and the thumbnails are now highlighted as to what is playing. If you hover the mouse above it, the thumbnail enlarges some to preview it. I think I will make the preview sizes a bit larger than the 60x60 px default.

 

[rrawhide]

lookin good Rich

I can just imagine the hours that you have spent on this venture so far

Good luck and keep us posted.

rrawhide

 

[Goodfella]

Hey Rich,


Your site is looking really good!!!


Al....


I love the pictures on your site!!! There is some really cool ones

 

[grapeman]

It is just about mid-winter here now in the North Country. How is the weather and cabin fever treating everyone?


Here December was pretty cold but not brutal like the previous year. It made it to about -5F. Snowfall has been pretty much normal and we are still in the dry slot probably for another 3-4 weeks and then the snows will pick up again.


This past week or so has been fairly mild with temps in the low 30's just about night and day. It gets a bit cooler at night than the day, but not bad.


During this warmer period, I racked about 20 carboys of wine this weekend, it was quite apparent that the new Italian carboys are indeed bigger than the Mexican carboys. As I went from one kind to another, I had to be careful which I emptied to refill, because I either had too much for one or not enough for the other. Luckily it worked quite well as I was racking off bentonite and acid, so I was losing some. It all worked out alright and I ended up with just a bit less than I began with- probably only lost a couple gallons altogether.



I did 10 yesterday and another 10 today. I did them in the morning and some carpentry work in the new winery in the afternoons. I may play hookey from drafting tomorrow and do another 10 and then some more carpentry in the afternoon. Actually I only have a bit more framing and then insulating the locked tax paid storage room.


I never lack for wine........ I needed to sample the wine as I racked to make sure of no off flavors etc so I typically have a couple ounces from each carboy. The Steuben and Buffalo are unique and quite spicey. I did some Sabrevois in a blush and WOW is it ever delicious. Today I did some LaCrescent and St. Pepin. The St Pepin will be the best I have made of it so far, bursting with citrusy aromas and full of apple, pear,pineapple and grapefruit-outstanding. The LaCrescent is great as usual, but a bit high in acid. I may need to drop that a bit more.


Man it is hard to do my job, but somehow I struggle through.

So that's what I do to keep from getting cabin fever.

 

[fivebk]

Rich, By now most everyone knows what kind of winter I have had, so I won't bring that up. The weather here has calmed down for the time being. Days are in the 30s with the nights just slightly cooler.The snow is gradually melting and things will get sloppy here this week because we are to get 3 days worth of rain ( still better than snow ).

I have been steam juicing different fruits that I collected last year. I have 6 gal.Cherry, 1 1/2 gal. Elderberry, 1 1/2 gal Blueberry, and 15 gal.of Pear.

I have a 6 gal. batch of peach wine started that is starting to clear. I will start a Pear or Pear/Pineapple , but not untill I bottle something. I HAVE NO EMPTY 5 OR 6 GALLON CARBOYS

I do have a 3 gallon carboy though and have been trying to come up with a recipe for a port. I'm thinking maybe a Chocolate/Cherry Mmmmmmmm !!!!!

I have 5 gal Mulberry, 20 gal Apple, 6 gal Plum, 6 gal Leibfraumilch, 6 gal Castel De Papa, and 6 gal Blueberry Melomel bulk aging.

BOB

 

[grapeman]

Here are some pictures of some of the wines going on in the winery. The first one shows some of the Willsboro wines. I racked some of the acid crystals today. The one going is the St. Pepin. As you can see, I was using the old fashioned way- just an auto siphon.

Here are a couple of the new locked storage room framed out.

You can't see much from the pictures , the room is about 10x12 feet and I am insulating it today to keep the temps more uniform all year while in cases.

 

[AlFulchino]

inch by inch

step by step

slowly but surely

you will remember all these stages unlike anyone else can truly appreciate

 

[vcasey]

It has been a learning process for all of us to read about the process the 2 of you are going through as well. We have a local brewer who is documenting his experience of opening up a craft brewery and his blog has been ....... entertaining.

 

[Goodfella]

How is your website coming along Appleman?














(Edit) I just found the link after making this post. It is looking really good!!!

 

[grapeman]

I have not done much work with it Goodfella. It is so heavily templated that it is ill-behaved in some browsers especially Firefox, so I may scrap that one. I have been working on another version to see if I can get what I want without so many formatting issues. I had taken the link out of my signature so not too many people would be looking at the mess.... I will post a link to the new one when I get it closer to being done- it is functional now but I need more content.