How much wine is actually made?
“We can make 4,000 bottles of wine. This year our harvest only resulted in about 2,000 bottles. Getting 4,000 bottles of wine, we mean a storage issue, a nice storage issue in trying to find a place to store the wine,” said Ken.
The wine club grows tempranillo and shiraz grapes, which it converts into its best seller The Grange rosé. Shiraz and Tempranillo wines are also made.
Village Manager Watermark & The Grange, Sarah Young, said growing and caring for the wine is a year-long pursuit and it keeps the residents occupied.
“It’s a very industrious village. The residents raise huge amounts of money for all different charities throughout the year,” she said.
“We have the bees as well. We have seven hives with three beekeepers who are village residents. All up there are about 15 residents involved in the various activities associated with the hives including making the hives, bottling and marketing the honey and producing the soaps, hand and lip balms.
“It is an entirely resident-driven activity like the wine.
“It’s an incredibly busy and productive village.”
The harvest for this year’s wines was in March and April and The Grange Wine Club members are now ready to bottle the wines.
“We should have 2,000 bottles across our rosé and Brunello and Shiraz, and that will happen in July. And then we’ll start marketing and selling it in August. We’ll launch the rosé with a with a rosé launch in August, which we have traditionally done in the past,” Ken said.
“We have 100 or so people come along and taste the wine and they’ll take orders on the day. We generally sell 50% of the rosé on the day of the launch.”
The cost per bottle for this year’s rosé is $15.