Voted Virginia's Favorite Winery

News for April 2008

"Sparkling and bright in the liquid light does the wine our goblets gleam in;
with hue as red as the rosy bed which a bee would choose to dream in."

-- Charles Fenno Hoffman

Our Tastings and Wine Dinners [more]

Taste of Virginia Wine Dinner, $89 + tax & tip, menu April 12th, 6:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. Our Barrel Room Reservations: 540-347-3475 or Email		Bavarian Inn Wine Dinner, $75, menu April 17th, 6:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. Bavarian Inn, Shepherdstown, WV Reservations: 304-876-2551 x409

Barrel Tasting and Futures Sale, $25 April 19 - 20th, 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Our Tasting Room Questions: 540-347-3475 or Email		Corvette Club Car Show, $5 for Tasters April 19th, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Winery at La Grange, Haymarket, VA Questions: 703-753-9360

Spring Fling Wine Dinner, $99 + tax & tip May 3rd, 6:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. Winery at La Grange, Haymarket, VA Reservations: 703-753-9360		Mother's Day Celebration, $5 May 11th, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Our Tasting Room & Winery at La Grange, Haymarket, VA Questions: 540-347-3475 or 703-753-9360

Our Products

Spring sale time is here! Our 2006 Sauvignon Blanc is available for the ridiculously low price of $15 per bottle or $150 per case with no additional discounts, and our 2003 Late Harvest Vidal is $19 per bottle while quantities last. We also have Pearmund Cellars ornaments at 50% off, and other sales on winter clothing and gifts. Shop for all your wine-loving friends while sipping a glass of your favorite varietal.

Redmund recommends taking home his Reserve White wine to complement your favorite grilled fish. One of his best friends from Bonefish Grill in Gainesville, Virginia, gave him a Yellow Coconut Curry Sauce recipe that makes his family barbeque more often. He also says that you may wish to bring your friends and family to enjoy our April activities:

Taste of Virginia Wine Dinner: Explore Virginia's heritage in a gourmet winemaker's dinner that savors regional fare and comaraderie in our elegant barrel room on April 12th;
Bavarian Inn Wine Dinner: Enjoy an April 17th canapes reception and four-course gourmet dinner carefully chosen by Master Chef Wolfgang Vomend to complement our winemaker's selections. Note their special lodging rate for overnight guests;
Barrel Tasting and Futures Sale: On April 19 - 20th, enjoy pre-release samplings of our 2007 vintage wines paired with hors d’oeuvres and gourmet cheeses, discussions with the winemakers responsible for the fine vintages, and the opportunity to purchase cases of these future wines at discounted pricing;
Corvette Club Car Show: Drink fine wine while enjoying the Old Dominion Corvette Club car show at our sister Winery at La Grange on April 19th. For rain dates and more unique activities, see the winery's Happenings page.

Our Process

In the Vineyard: When customers visit Pearmund Cellars for a delightful afternoon of wine tasting, few folks realize they are only a couple hundred yards north of two colonies of about 100,000 buzzing honey bees. Their hives reside peacefully under a small sapling down by the red barn. During the Spring, hard-working bees gather pollen and nectar to feed their young larvae. They also help the environment and our own food supply by contributing to pollination of plants vital to our agriculture base. Our hives are cared for by our Chief Beekeeper Keith "Spacesuit Man" Fletcher, Associate Beekeeper D.J. "Want-a-Bee" Leffin, and occasionally Chris "Bee Charmer" Pearmund, but the real credit to the hives' success goes to our long-time friend, Karla Eisen, who made us realize the importance of bees. CBS News will be featuring Karla's beekeeping class working with our bees on April 19th. Watch the news and read more about how our bees "Think globally. Pollinate locally!"

In the Winery: On April 14th, we will bottle our 2007 Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. Many local customers sampled these wines in their barrels and have been eagerly awaiting this event because it means the new wines will be available soon afterwards. To support our customers in other states, we have been finding new distributors. We are beginning to sell our wines through L&M Fine Wines of Louisville, Colorado, and are in discussions with a major Texas distributor. If your favorite wine store has a distributor that would like to work with us, please have them call the winery at 540-347-3475.

Our People

Wholesale Account Manager: Dickey Rustin

A few of you have been lucky enough to meet Dickey Rustin, our Wholesale Account Manager. His coming to Pearmund Cellars was a natural extension of his enthusiastic interest in wine appreciation. Formerly a federal executive, Dickey's area of expertise included international programs. He traveled throughout the world for two to three months a year and had the opportunity to visit many of the world's wine regions. Upon his retirement, Dickey decided to expand upon his wine knowledge through dedicated support for the Virginia wine industry.

Dickey is usually on the road visiting restaurants, wine stores, inns, and country clubs which carry our wines. He also assists with merchandising, marketing channels, and product promotion. Dickey is full of great ideas for expanding our wholesale business, and we feel quite fortunate to have him working with us.

Our Partners & Retailers

VA Winery Partner: Frog's Leap Laser Art

Partner: Richard De Vynck of Frog's Leap Laser Art offers a line of decorative ornaments made of crystal, wood, glass, acrylic, and paper. Using many different natural colors to match nature's palette, he reproduces mostly maritime, floral, and wildlife motifs. Richard takes great care in reproducing images accurately and adds a great deal of detail, just like he does for his model ships commissioned by Bowdoin College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology museums. His key rings and ornaments are on sale at Pearmund Cellars.

Wine Store: Located in the heart of Washington, DC, Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits is a family-owned business that takes prides in providing not only a great variety of wines and beer but also a great variety of activities and special services. The store offers weekly specials, winemaker talks, free tastings, wine dinners, custom orders, half bottles, gift bottles, deliveries, kosher wines, organic wines, etc. The staff treats customers with courtesy and respect, listening closely to their needs. Ask them for an innovative food pairing to match your favorite Pearmund Cellars wine.

Enjoy Pearmund Cellars Wines at Apartment 2G

Restaurant: Apartment 2G occupies the upper floor of J's Gourmet. The decor features stained glass, paintings, and photographs by local artists. Light jazz classics plays in the background, and a unique closed-circuit television system allows you to watch as your dinner is prepared. Wednesday and Thursdays nights feature an a la carte menu with a few options at each course. Friday and Saturday nights feature a prix fixe 5-course menu with a delightful amuse bouche followed by a pasta course, salad, entree and a dessert.

Inn: Located in historic Shepherdstown, West Virginia, the Bavarian Inn is a romantic country chalet offering European elegance and authentic Bavarian cuisine from its scenic location overlooking the Potomac River. Only an hour from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and minutes from Harpers Ferry, Antietam Battlefield and Charlestown Races and Slots, the inn has won many awards, including a AAA Four Diamond and the Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence. Its 72 luxuriously-appointed rooms with gas fireplaces and whirlpool baths are the perfect place to relax with a bottle of your favorite Pearmund Cellars wine.

Our Industry

Sadly, Maryland's House of Delegates and Senate rejected bills that would let Maryland consumers buy wine directly from Internet merchants and wineries, as is permitted in 36 states. The Baltimore Sun article tells how Bruce Bereano, a lobbyist for the Licensed Beverage Distributors of Maryland, overcame arguments of Senator Jamie Raskin and other bill supporters.

Going to a more cheerful subject, Tim Hanni, one of the first two Americans to pass England's prestigious Master of Wine exam, believes that our taste in wine is physiologically predetermined by the number of taste buds on our tongue. He breaks people into the following categories:

Tolerant tasters, who have the fewest number of taste buds, tend to like everything, and especially favor dry, high-intensity, assertive wines.
Sensitive tasters, who have fewer taste buds, have a sharpened reaction to flavors, and have broad range of preferences.
Hypersensitive tasters, who have the most taste buds, have an aversion to bitterness, and favor delicacy over intensity.
Sweet tasters, who are hypersensitive or sensitive tasters with a sweet tooth.

Tim recently tested his theory at the Lodi International Wine Awards where he swabbed the judges' tongues with blue food coloring before photographing them under a magnifying glass. Fungiform papillae, small mushroom-shaped structures that hold microscopic taste buds, remained pink and could be counted. Judging panels were then organized to include equal numbers of people in the three main sensitivity groups. Instead of giving out medals, the judges bestowed prizes based on taste preferences. For example, a wine could win a top prize from tolerant tasters but a lower prize from hypersensitive tasters.

For more information about Tim Hanni's theory, see the San Francisco Chronicle article. To see panel prizes by category, check the competition results. To take an interesting test that was offered to competition attendees, try the Budometer.

We appreciate your business and your feedback. What topics would you like to see covered in future newsletters?
Please send your comments to info@pearmundcellars.com, and please forward this newsletter to other wine aficionados.
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