Why is there sediment at the bottom?

Some of our wines have some crystals at the bottom of the bottle, such as On the Mark.  These are tartrate crystals that showcase that the wines are naturally made.  Larger wineries can put on refrigeration blankets and chill the wines so that it drops out.  Then they move the wine and leave the crystals.  It is basically cream of tartar if you would pound it out.  They are called "diamonds" by the winemakers, so it can't be bad.  You just need to be careful pouring out the last glass.  You can taste them and they are a concentrated crunch of the wine.

Do you use sulphites?

Yes, we do use sulphites for sales to stores and restaurants for ensuring the wines are stable for your experience.  Our wines are cool climate wines and as such have their own natural acidity so our wines don't need as many sulphites as hotter regions.  Those sensitive to sulphites may not notice the sulphites as much; however, those with allergies have to recognize this..

How long does the Wild Blackberry port-style wine keep once open?

Even though our Wild Blackberry is thought of as a port-style wine or a mixer, this is a blackberry wine.  It is very stable and usually can keep open for at least 2 weeks once open.  There is a practice that you need to be more concerned when there is more air in the bottle than wine.  It will also keep better once in the fridge.  If you pump the wines, then the blackberry can keep up to 3 weeks.

How is the harvest for our wines?

We are a cool climate region and our region is in between Champagne and Burgundy or also similar to the Alsatian region.  As we live on the "wet" coast our challenge is rain and if it rains then we can lose our grapes to powdery mildew within a week.  We have more challenging harvest years than easier harvest.  However, the last 3 years have been very good for our region.  We have been picking when we want to not when we have to.  Harvests are challenging but I think it also then weeds out the top winemakers.  Since we began in 2005, we have been able to harvest every year and put forth wines of the region.