New York wineries noticing a drop in visits

This note from the weekly New York Wine & Grape Foundation newsletter. It's a topic I'll try to explore throughout the week in our neck of the vineyards:

GAS PRICES got you down? Then go to Europe where gas is about $9 a gallon, and that’s not including the extra you’d pay if you first have to exchange dollars for Euros, which would bring it to $14. (Fortunately, I took the tube and didn’t have to drive anywhere.) So $4 sounds pretty cheap, but unfortunately it still seems to be taking a toll on wine country tourism, both in number of visitors and purchases. About a month ago, visitor counts seemed pretty even with last year, and purchases actually up—so the people who came intended to buy—but more recently that seems to have eroded, just like the economy in general. We don’t have any formal survey or statistics, just anecdotal information from conversations, but it seems pretty consistent.