Manatawny: Winter Warmth set thru Monday

This note came in this morning from Manatawny Creek Winery in Douglassville, Pa. I'll add it to the Event Grapevine when that gets posted later tonight, but here's the skinny on event schedule this weekend at Manatawny, one of the top 10 winners in the competition held recently by the Wine Society of Central Pennsylvania.

"In celebration of the holiday weekend, the upcoming inauguration, and the Eagles in the playoffs, we decided to have a little “warmth” fun this coming frigid weekend. Friday, January 16, through Monday, January 19, we are putting our Winter Warmth on sale for 10% off. We will be serving this wine warm all weekend with some ginger snaps (try dipping the cookies into the wine). We’ll be open on Monday from 10-6 as well for the holiday. Warm, sweet, spiced wine being sipped by a roaring fire – sounds good to me!"

All for now – cheers!
Joanne
Manatawny Creek Winery
227 Levengood Road
Douglassville, PA., 19518
610-689-9804
www.manatawnycreekwinery.com
Hours: Friday, Saturday 10-6; Sunday 12-6

Mazza: Industry proving to be good investment

Had posted some of the conversation with Bob Mazza, president of the state winery association, about the impact of the economy and specifically what's going on in New York, where there are fears that Gov. David Patterson will cut off funding entirely to the Wine & Grape Foundation. I asked Mazza if there are similar concerns in Pennsylvania.

"I think every state's gotta fear something right now because of the state of the economy on a federal level and actually that trickles down to a state and local level, so, year, we all gotta be concerned about that," Mazza said by phone. "New York has been receiving substantial funding for a good number of years, probably over 20 years now, and that’s probably an area they're going to take a look at. But that’s kind of beating your chest to start out with and then of course everybody kind of moves down the line. I don’t think that’s going to happen, to be quite honest with you. I don’t think they are going to cut all the funding I think they’ve seen a tremendous return on their investment and that’s what it’s all about, that's the case you continually make is, 'Hey, whatever money you spend, we return much more, and it’s a good sound investment.' You don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. You gotta get rid of the bad programs that don’t work and aren’t returning anything on the investment and certainly keep continuing to support the programs that do, and I think it’s been proven that [the wine industry] does. So they just need to make that case."