Happy New Year!!!!!!

The Wine Maker's Toy Store™

Bringing family and friends together...One sip at a time!

Welcome to Pressing News, the monthly newsletter published by Fine Vine Wines, LLC, designed exclusively to assist the home vintner in the pursuit of their hobby!

THIS MONTH ON THE VINE!

WELCOME

As we start our fourth year in business, I would like to, again, take this opportunity to welcome you to Fine Vine Wines, LLC, "The Wine Maker's Toy Store" and to wish you and your family a most joyous holiday season. Whether you need products or just need information, we are here to serve you. I want to extend my thanks again for making The Wine Maker's Toy Store your home for your wine making and beer brewing needs. It continues to be my hope that every time you visit our web site or retail store, you find something of value.

As a reminder, we continue to add products and content to the web site; therefore, if you have any special requests, please let us know. We like to hear what you have to say about our site, our products and/or our customer service, good or bad. Please send your comments and/or suggestions to winemaster@finevinewines.com.

NEWSLETTER SPECIALS

To reward those of you that take the time to read our newsletter every month, we are adding a newsletter special. We promise to offer an outstanding value each month via this feature and this special pricing will only be available through a link from the current month's newsletter. A link to the newsletter special will appear somewhere in the newsletter.

NEW WEB FEATURES

We have added some more features to the MY ACCOUNT section. Click here to find out more.

CUSTOMER REFFERAL PROGRAM

In case you missed it, we have a customer referral program that provides additional discounts to registered users. We will give you a coupon worth 10% of the first order placed by any person that you refer to our web site. The stipulations are as follows:

That's all you have to do to get another discount from finevinewines.com.

BARON'S PREMIUM BEER KITS ON SALE!

For those of you that have wanted to try a no-boil beer kit, we have placed all of the Baron's Premium Beer kits on sale this month. We have shaved $4.00 off of every Baron's kit resulting in as much as 20% off. If you have ever wanted to try one of these kits, now is the time.

CUSTOMER APPRECIATION PROGRAM - FVW GROWERS CLUB

Please check out our FVW Growers Club. You can get all of the details on our web site, but the bottom line is we want to buy your loyalty! Once you spend $500 with us, you get a 5% discount on everything you buy from us. Find out more on the web site.

THE FIRST ANNUAL WINE MAKER'S TOY STORE CONFERENCE

We are proud to announce Dallas' first conference devoted to home wine making. Although we have not finalized the schedule or guest speakers and won't until January, we can tell you the following about this event:

1. We are planning on having this at the end of April or the first of May, depending upon the availability of the wine judges and presentors.
2. It will start with an informal mixer on a Friday night and we will have judging and presentations on Saturday with a dinner on Saturday night.
3. We will have a contest for those that would like to enter their wines.

We have a thread in the forum asking for your ideas and suggestions. If you have any that you would like to share, please post them on this thread.

FORUM

When you have a question or just want to learn more about wine making, don't forget our forum! We have over 325 registered users, including some extremely knowledgable wine makers with loads of valuable information and willing to assist you in your wine making needs. As of the printing of this newsletter, we have almost 14,000 posts. We also have 4 moderators, now and an administrator. Responses to most posts are made within minutes.

Whether you are an expert or a novice, it is an excellent place to ask questions, exchange ideas and meet other home wine makers. If you haven't logged into the forum, try it sometime. I think you will find it most informative and enjoyable, as well as, a great place to meet fellow wine makers.

FEATURED ARTICLE - THE HOME WINE MAKER'S ARSENAL, part 1

Last month we talked about how to build your inventory of wines, so in keeping with that train of thought, we decided to help you build up your arsenal of wine making equipment to make sure you always have what you need on hand. This article, like most of my articles, is based on my personal experiences in home wine making and there have been times when I was ready to work on my wine, just to find I was missing something I desperately needed. I am sure most of you have similar stories!

To help you avoid these "disasaters", here is my list of items that every home wine makers using the wine ingredients should consider having in their arsenal. Next month, I will talk about additional items for the wine maker using fresh ingredients.

• Spare Hydrometer - Since I can not locate an economical plastic hydrometer and since they do break way too often, a extra hydrometer is a must.
• Extra Packets of Yeast - Althought the wine ingredients kits are virtually foolproof, on occassion, you might get a stuck fermentation. If you have an extra packet of yeast lying around, you can re-start your fermenation immediately, instead of waiting days for a replacement pack to arrive or having to drive to your local home wine making store.
• Plenty of cleaner and sanitizer on hand - The last thing you want to happen is to get ready to start a new batch, rack your wine or bottle your wine and find you don't have anything to clean and/or sanitize your equipment. Once again, it is either wait on the mail or make a trip to your local home wine making store.
• 1-Gallon Jugs - These are great for many things, i.e., storing your sulfite solution, storing wine for topping off, making a small batch of new trial wine and many other uses. In addition, the plastic screw caps provide and excellent seal without the need for a stopper, which is this month's newsletter special. $3.99 for a 1-gallon glass jug with a plastic resealable lid.
• Spray Bottle - A plastic spray bottle with a sulfite solution is extremely handy for sanitizing those commonly used items like the hydrometer and wine thief. Instead of dragging out a bucket and filling it with sanitizer, then pouring it back in your jug, you can just squirt the item with solution from your squirt bottle.
• Corks - Plenty of corks on hand BEFORE you start bottling. Need I say more?
• Airlocks and Stoppers - At least one of each for each carboy and jug you use. Nothing like using a carboy only to find you do not have a stopper and/or airlock for it. It is also good to have some #2 or #3 drilled stopper around to use with a standard wine bottle. Sometimes you have a little extra wine and putting it into a wine bottle with a stopper and airlock will preserve the wine and you will not have to throw it out.
• Spare 6-Gallon Carboy - Although you can rack into your bucket, clean the carboy and rack back, it is much simpler to just rack from carboy to carboy.

I hope this list helps in your hobby and next month we will talk about the additional needs of the "scratch" wine maker.Cheers and Happy Wine Making!

TOYS OF THE MONTH

For those of you that don't ferment in your temperature controlled home or are going to keep the thermostat down due to the expected high heating bills, we are offering our toys that help you keep tabs on the temperature of your wine and control the temperature, as well.

This month's special pricing is listed below:

If you are looking for a product that I do not carry, my primary distributor is LD Carlson and you can see their complete product list at their public catalog. If you find anything you would like me to add, please let me know.

CALL US!

If you have any questions about our products, our service and/or wine making, please call us. We are not Corporate America! We are here to serve you. I bring this up, because a number of my callers apologize for bothering me or using my toll-free line. You are definitely not bothering me and I have a toll-free line so you WILL call me.

Sometimes, I am unable to answer the phone. If you get the voice mail, please leave your name, number, brief message and a best time to call. I will return your call as soon as I can. I now have the Company Line forwarded to my cell phone when I am not in the store. As a result, I am now available almost 24-7. I do need to sleep!

If you don't want to call, just send me an email. I usually answer my email daily. In addition, your emails and/or calls do not have to relate to wine. I will discuss any topic you like, so please remember, I am your resource and I am here for you.

WINE OF THE MONTH

This month we are featuring the South American wines. We have 5 wine kits from Chile and 1 from Argentina. All 6 wines are excellent kits and have been some of my biggest sellars of late. The Malbec is growing in popularity and for those of you that like a little more oak in your wines, the Chileans make a nice oakey wine.

Please note that my specials have been moving very fast. I try to bring in extras, but lately, I have not been able to keep up with the demand. Depending upon stock, these wines may not ship as fast as my normal schedule. The wines listed below are all marked down 15%:

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

We appreciate all of your comments, whether good or bad. To demonstrate our commitment to outstanding customer service, I have created a web page with your feedback. As we receive emails that comment about our service, I will post them on this page.

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Feel free to pass this newsletter on to any of your friends and thank you for your continued support of Fine Vine Wines.