January 14, 2012 General Meeting

Meeting brought to order at 11:57am by president Mindy Zoghlin.

  • 31 members present.

Intro of members and guests:

  • Guests—Herman Hermanson.
  • New members—Gerald & Charlotte Klose, longtime winemaker and friends of Terry Chrzan; Dale Robinson.

Reading/approval of minutes.

Committee reports:

  • Newsletter—Jill out of town, Tom Banach reporting. Thanking all for their efforts and contributions. San Antonio newsletter picked up a recent article of ours.
  • Financial—currently have $1,322.90 in our account. Club has winemaking tools and equipment for member use. List to appear in a forthcoming newsletter.
  • Banquet—at Rick’s Prime Rib, Saturday April 28. Tickets are $30.00 each, payable to the club. Send to Tom Banach. Prime rib & Chicken French.
  • Dues—are due April 1 and payable to the club now. $15.00 for a single membership, $5.00 for an additional member.
  • State Fair—Some members have approached the state fair committee to clarify judging criteria. Still waiting to hear back.
  • Sunset Hydroponics (Greece) will give club members 10% discount on everything. Don’t know about Eastview store yet.
  • Winemaker conference—Friday, June 1. Have asked us to offer 3 cases of our wines, but only giving 5 passes for pourers.

Old business:

  • Sawmill Creek educational session (Hector Wine Company)— has been changed. Proposed: 1 hour in field, 1 hour in lab, 2 hour tour. Price under discussion. Tim Gregory to get more info to the club.
  • Wine Seminar—August 11, 2012 at Cornell Cooperative (same as in the past) – still $20.00.

New business:

  • Nominations—VP, Tom Banach; Treasurer, Paul Carlotta; Secretary, Dick Catalfo. As the board members were elected last year, there are no openings this year.
  • Waterloo Container run—This week being made by Dick Catalfo. Will be picking up corks & bottles for the club to resell to club members (still a great deal).
  • 50/50 raffle—$46.00 to the club; $46.00 to the winner, Dean Frohm.

Tech sessions:

  • Cold stabilization,by Terry Chrzan—You want the temp below 32 degrees for at least 3 weeks. Below 20 the wine will freeze, so be careful. Vodka or wine should be used in the airlock instead of water. Cold stabilization helps to keep tartrates from precipitating out of the finished white wine. You will want to rack your wines when you bring them back in.
  • From Jan Klapetzky—Use Sparkaloid for about a week before you cold stabilize; yields clearer results that using bentonite. You can re-Sparkaloid if needed (use about half).
  • Wine Evaluation by Dave Gerling—Dave brought in one of his wines for us to evaluate using the American Wine Society’s Wine Evaluation Chart.
  • Dave Gerling has the fault kits for people to sample.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:00pm.

Thanks to Bruce Dunn for helping with the meeting minutes.

Dick Catalfo, Recording Secretary.