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  1. Hokapsig

    Our first Wine show....

    thanks for those positive words Chris!! Although the main goal was to have a tasting room and bigger production area, we are learning from friends that the overhead costs and relying on employees may not make this dream in our cards. Our CPA advises against it. We are of the mindset of "if it...
  2. Hokapsig

    Our first Wine show....

    time for our annual update. Into our 10th year of operation, we have had to negotiate some challenges this past year..... Obviously with the government caused inflation, our expenses took a hit, but we were able to offset this by cutting back on labor by doing less, but more profitable...
  3. Hokapsig

    Hi All! I'm Cody from SW Pennsylvania

    Welcome Cody. We are in Westmoreland county (Greensburg/Irwin/Murrysville) and we started out on this site as a hobby winemaker and went commercial 9 years ago. Lots of good people and good info on this site. My uncle lives south just outside Brownsville on the river.
  4. Hokapsig

    What R you doing today?

    bottled 5 + cases of Lemon, filtering 25 gal of Marquis, filtering the last of the Cinnamon Pear and Chocolate Elderberry and the Noiret. Starting another 50 gal of Lemon, Need to bottle 6 cases of Port. And all this and more will be gone by Saturday evening. Sunday morning, we start again.....
  5. Hokapsig

    New Winery & Tasting Room checklist, thoughts, insights etc

    another trick that we learned how to do is to hold one wine back and use it as your "super Secret Wine of the Day", then let the customer taste it. it becomes a "they can't have it, but now they want it" wine. We did a mulled wine a few years ago - a dry bitey Chambourcin which was GREAT for...
  6. Hokapsig

    New member from NWPA

    No straight Isabella at this time. We have about 42 different wines, and we try to vary them by season. I'm starting to bottle our fall/winter wines now in preparation for upcoming events and to finish up this years farmer's markets.
  7. Hokapsig

    New member from NWPA

    We own Bushy Run Winery which is in Harrison City, about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh. Waiting on harvest to come up and refill our tanks. We do mainly sweet and semi sweet, with an occasional dry. People that want dry are better to go the state store and grab a bottle there, though we get good...
  8. Hokapsig

    New Winery & Tasting Room checklist, thoughts, insights etc

    LOL, the lowest paid guy in the company (ME) gets to do most of the tastings. If you're lucky, you may get my wife as she has learned to pour and talk about the wines too. Seriously, the tasting room staff can either make or break your guest's experience. REMEMBER, you are NOT selling wine in...
  9. Hokapsig

    New member from NWPA

    Moe, Welcome to the universe of wine making. We frequent the North East area and are happy to hear that Johnny B's has reopened under a new name. Now only if the Freeport would reopen too. We are up in the fall to pick up juice for our winery and the bigger wineries are great to work with.
  10. Hokapsig

    Our first Wine show....

    well, the first Q of 2023 is complete and we enter our 10th year of being commercial. With the wine festivals returning, people have put Covid in their rear view mirror and appear to returning to normal. Sales have been brisk and we have been expanded our distribution into 9 Giant Eagle food...
  11. Hokapsig

    Why I Hate Winemaking

    LOL, that might be the old adage, but some of us on this site might disagree with that.
  12. Hokapsig

    Correct way to use variable capacity wine tanks...

    we take a sample out of the VC tank to see if it clearing on its own or whether we have to dose it with sparkloid. For whites, you can actually see to the bottom of the tank after a good addition of sparkloid. For reds, you can take a sample and check it in your hydrometer tube.
  13. Hokapsig

    Our first Wine show....

    as 2022 comes to a close, we can look back on our year and see what was done right, and where some challenges remain..... We are moving into our 9th year of being fully licensed and our sales continue to escalate. We will hit an all time high sales for the year, even without our best selling...
  14. Hokapsig

    New Winery- What equipment should I acquire first? Filter/Tanks/Glycol Chiller/etc

    i would advise against purchasing any equipment until you can make your wines which can sell in small batch first. Once you have wines that people will pay you for, THEN you can scale up. FB Marketplace and Craigslist are your friend, but eventually you will need some VC tanks, filter system...
  15. Hokapsig

    POS system?

    we run ours on an Ipad
  16. Hokapsig

    "Boutique" wineries using wine kits?

    when we couldn't get grapes/juice during the pandemic, we had to resort to using some kits as a base, but jazzed the wines up to put our own stamp on them. These wines have now gained a following from how we modified them.
  17. Hokapsig

    New Winery & Tasting Room checklist, thoughts, insights etc

    1. SMILE and great your guests. This costs nothing and gets the guest ready to taste your wines. remember, guests can go to any store and buy a wine. They are NOT there just to buy a wine, they are there for the tasting EXPERIENCE. THAT is what you are selling. 2. have a tasting sheet that tells...
  18. Hokapsig

    POS system?

    we use square and we like it. we are able to pull reports for taxes, track our progress, etc.
  19. Hokapsig

    Pumpkin Wine from Pumpkin Juice

    for my Tri-state winemakers, i see that Walkers has Pumpkin juice this year. Looking for a: Tried and true recipe using pumpkin juice your opinion of how your's came out and any tweeking you would recommend Was this a crowd pleaser? What to watch out for. Any responses greatly appreciated. I'm...
  20. Hokapsig

    Our first Wine show....

    update, we were able to defend our Best Beverage title at the wine festival. That makes 2 years in a row and we were able to get some more loyal customers to follow us to other festivals. Those are the easyist sales as they come to us and want to try the new wines. We were also invited to...
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