Should you stop by within the next few days, please disregard the loud sounds of construction coming from the general vicinity of our bathroom. We are doing a bit of reconfiguring .

Bathroom space is always at a premium, so we decided that we needed to add in another bathroom in order to accommodate our customers. Lucky you!

Matthew Haverkamp has been hard at work tackling the fun job of building around logs. So far, he hasn’t thrown his hands up in frustration. Of course, it’s still early.

We are planning on quite a few new renovations this year. So, pardon our progress. It may be a little noisy. Thanks!

Rules:

January is a fairly calm month for us. It’s the month where we get all of our federal ducks in a row, prepare the winery for the next growing season and plan events for the upcoming year. We are looking forward to an exciting 2012 with some exciting changes hopefully in the future. If there is anything that you are looking forward to this year, let us know! We love to hear ideas from our fans!

We are also in the process of planning out our Blues & Wine series for this upcoming Summer. If you or someone you know has a blues band that would like to play a show this year, please send us a demo kit by before the end of February! Blues Bands only please!

Thanks once again for being such fantastic friends and customers and we look forward to seeing you out at the winery soon!

We are also excited to tell you about the new Tennessee Winery smartphone app! You can download this free app to your phone and have all the information you need for all of Tennessee’s wineries! Download it today and let us know what you think!

Lastly, our hours are now Sunday thru Thursday 12-5 and Friday and Saturday 10-6. We will be open on Christmas Eve until 6pm for all of you last minute shoppers! We are offering gift wrapping on all wine purchases as well! Come on out and see us.

Happy Holidays!

Nate and Vanessa

One of the best things about carrying local products here at the winery is being able to pick our favorites! We have been carrying Totty’s Bend Soaps for several months now and it has been such a popular product. Who doesn’t love soap?! And their soap is fantastic. Seriously, we have all converted over to this silky smooth local goat soap and we all have our favorite scents.

All of Totty’s Bend’s soaps and lotions are made from high quality, sustainable, ingredients including milk from their own goats! They are always coming out with new varieties and there is always something for everyone! ( That means they have manly soap too).

So, if you are looking for the perfect stocking stuffer this Christmas, then please swing by and pick up a couple bars of Totty’s Bend Soap!!

So, our Winter hours are Sunday – Thursday 12-5 and Friday & Saturday 10am-6pm.

We are looking forward to few extra hours of rest ourselves. See you out at the winery soon!!

The weather is finally getting cooler and with cooler weather our minds instantly begin to wander to the holiday season. If you are anything like us you are always looking for that special, unique gift to give to family and friends. Therefore, we thought we would do our best to help you find something special and spotlight some of our local vendors that we have in our tasting room. All of these gifts are handmade with skill and love. We hope you love the local products that our little town has to offer as much as we do.

Our first Local Spotlight vendor is Blackberry Hill Farms. Blackberry Hill is owned and operated by Sue and Jim and their two wonderful children in Nunnelly, TN. Together they raise award-winning Icelandic sheep.

From the wool that they hand-shear from these precious animals, Sue and Jim hand dye and hand spin their own wool yarn and make their own fleece. They offer a variety of finished products such as shawls, soap scrubies and handbags as well as skeins of their beautifully dyed and spun yarn. Each product is labeled with the name of the sheep who donated their coat to the product ( our favorite is Gretyl. She’s so soft!).

Whether you have a knitter in the family or just someone who loves unique handmade gifts, Blackberry Hill’s wool products is a great gift idea!

]]> http://gswinery.com/2011/10/21/local-spotlight-blackberry-hill-farm/feed/ 0 The Gravy Train Blackberry Hill Farm Skidoo and April Blackberry Hill Farm http://gswinery.com/2011/10/14/so-long-pearl/ http://gswinery.com/2011/10/14/so-long-pearl/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:18:56 +0000 jodiemo http://gswinery.com/?p=278 Continue reading →]]> If you have stopped in the tasting room lately, you may have noticed that our wine tribute to Miss Minnie is gone. Pearl will be off of our menu for a while, but don’t worry! You’ll see Pearl around sometime next year.

Soon, there will be a new wine in town and it is one that dry red lovers everywhere will clamor for. Our soon-to-be-released Three Eighty Two is now in a bottle. Currently, it is recovering from what we call “bottle shock” but will be available for purchase November 5th.

We are very excited about this wine. We think it is some of the best dry red that has come out of Grinder’s Switch Winery to date. Harvested entirely off of our vineyards, this full bodied dry red comes from the Chambourcin variety of grapes. Chambourcin produces not only a seductively dark purple color, but also a rich mouth feel, smooth tannins, and an earthy black cherry taste. It pairs particularly well with red meat or dark chocolate and will certainly be a wonderful end to a chilly fall day. While this wine is certainly pleasant to drink now, it would develop even more personality should you happen to put a few bottles away for 6 months to 2 years.

The Three Eighty Two is also the first in our new collection of estate wines. These estate wines will be grown solely in our vineyards and will each have a unique train-inspired label. The Three Eighty Two is, of course, the ill-fated train driven by Casey Jones. The legendary train engineer from Jackson, Tennessee.

The next in our estate collection of wines will be the Zephyr. We hope to be able to release it before the end of the year.

So, make plans to come visit us in November for the release of our newest dry red, Three Eighty Two.