Happy Holidays

Happy holidays from Addison Farms Vineyard. We hope you have a safe and wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday. We know that we are blessed to call this place home. It is a great feeling knowing we are home to stay, and not just visiting for the holidays.

This year, 2012, has been a year of big change for us. One of the biggest challenges this year has been construction of the tasting room. We were able to overcome issues, obstacles, obstinance, weather, delays, decisions, tantrums, and inertia to get to this point. It has been an exciting and scary year for us. We bottled our first wines [thank you to everyone who helped: Jerry, Kristin, Kristin [yep, two Kristin’s!], David, Daniel, Eddie, Eddie [yep, two Eddie’s!], Maleada, Cecil, Norris, Dianne, and Earl]; sold our first cases [thank you Ma&Pa Hall!]; participated in our first farm tour [thank you ASAP!]; picked our second harvest of fruit from our vineyard [thank you: Linda, Clifford, Paul, Eddie, Maleada, Dianne, Doug, Tony, Cody, Jerry, Eddie [yep, two Eddie’s!], Julie, Ken, Pam, and a few others who made drop-bys and drop-ins for an hour or two]. We expanded the winery with some new equipment, and completed our largest crush yet.

The biggest change for us? Dianne and I sold our home, and uprooted Dianne from the big city. We are living under the same roof after doing the long-distance marriage for the past five years. It is a great thing, even if it meant moving my office back to Ma&Pa Fris’. I think Dianne misses her friends and comrades in the office at Elevation, but we are glad to have her home. Don’t fret Elevators: She will still be in the office on a pretty regular basis, maybe one or two weeks a quarter.

I think change is a good way to describe this past year. Thank you to all of the people who have worked so hard to help us build our tasting room. I especially want to say thank you to my dad, Eddie, who has put in the most hours, logged really long days, worked even when it hurt too much to do so, been a sounding board and sometimes a verbal sparring partner, made the impossible possible, and generally managed a difficult project with seeming ease. I know it took more patience, determination, and skill than it might appear to the average observer; it was anything but ‘easy!’

Of course, Ma Fris had the hardest job of all: Keeping Pop and I straight, listening to a good bit of whining and complaining, and making sure we did not go hungry in the process. To my parents, all I can say is: I love you.

Happy holidays everybody.

We had a really fun weekend with Friendswood Brooms. Marlow and Diana make some really beautiful pieces, and Marlow even taught Dianne how to stitch a broom. If you missed seeing Marlow live, check out his website [link above], and see some of the craft shows he will be working in 2013. You can even order brooms online by sending Marlow an email.

We tentatively think Marlow will be back to our place around bud break, in late March or sometime in April; we will certainly be making the announcement on our web site and Facebook page. Thank you for joining us this weekend, Marlow, and thank you for the very beautiful cobweb broom that I know we will put to good use cleaning the corners of the high ceilings!