Harvest began last week, and we picked the Vignoles and crushed the fruit. We got considerably more tonnage than we expected. The other varieties have been a bit late in the maturation of the fruit this year. We have begun picking Chardonel this week, because the sugars have been a little slower to rise, which may be attributable to the over abundance of rain in the spring and throughout the growing season. We are picking the other varieties within the next few days, and we need pickers. It is Chaumette’s policy to hand-harvest all fruit. By doing this, we avoid the maceration of the skins, which results from machine-picking. We believe that hand-harvested fruit produces a better wine. We need help harvesting this year. If you have interest in coming to Chaumette and putting in a day or two or a week, please let Mike Stewart know; he can be reached at 573-330-5147. We pay 9 cents per pound for harvested fruit. We pick into baskets which weigh about 30 pounds. Our harvest record belongs to a woman in her mid-seventies, who two years ago picked 120 baskets in a day.

I’m delighted to announce that Jennifer Johnson has been promoted to Vice President of the company. She will continue her role as Director of Marketing and Business Development and will take on new responsibilities in oversight of several areas of our operation. Jennifer has been with Chaumette for more than 10 years, overseeing marketing and special projects, including all marketing, communications and public relations, including social media. Her specific duties include some very important tools in our branding, the development of our annual social media plan as well as the design and development of our website. Congratulations to Jennifer for a job well done!

As you may remember, we recently purchased and restored the Bequette Ribault House, a post-colonial structure located in Ste. Genevieve, which is open for tours & tastings on weekends. (Come see me there, and here’s a link to our brochure.) In 2006, the United States Congress approved a $50,000 appropriation to the National Parks Service to conduct a feasibility study of the practicability of creating a national park site in the city of Ste. Genevieve. After a nine year wait, the report was published the end of last month. To our delight, the report highly recommends the creation of a national park in Ste. Genevieve. The actual boundaries of the purposed park site include the Bequette Ribault House. On September 10th, a meeting was held in Ste. Genevieve for citizens to voice their opinions on the creation of this national park. About 100 people attended the meeting, many spoke, and there was not a single negative comment. Further, the National Parks Service maintains a comment area on their website for this project, and to date, not a single negative comment has been posted. There is huge momentum in favor of this proposal. The next step is for the National Parks Department to consider the comments made at the public meeting and then to forward their final recommendation to the United States Congress. Senator Roy Blunt and our Representative Jason Smith have both agreed to sponsor legislations in their respective houses. We are very excited about the prospect of being part of a new national park. The proposed park would carry the same status as Yellowstone Park, The St. Louis Arch, the Statue of Liberty and the 400 other national park sites in the United States. I will keep you advised of the progress as it takes place. If you’d like to peruse the National Park Service Resource Study, click here; the executive summery gives a good overview of the report. Also, the St. Louis Post Dispatch covered this story.