Neil Glaser

Dave I love the DLW site. It is something that is much needed. Much appreciated. Neil Horton Vineyards

Wow I was just using KJ as an example.... whatever Chardonnay that the restaurant is selling by the glass would work too. There are a few tiers at everyday local restaurants for Chardonnay by the glass. Whether you believe it or not, KJ resides at the second tier in many restaurants in Virginia... it is almost an automatic purchase for restaurants that have little wine experience. Yellowtail seems to be at the lowest tier, and I have a very difficult time competing with their pricing and replacing that product on the list. Just for chuckles, because it is so unlikely.... if Horton could replace all the KJ in just the Northern VA market, we would probably have to open another winery. One of the best ways for people to discover our wines is to try them by the glass at a reasonable price ($6/glass maybe) then hopefully they enjoy the wine and visit our facility. If the wine is just sitting on the list (not by the glass), it is usually the ones who know our wines and have already enjoyed them that buy that bottle off the list. As an added point... if the same restaurant has great success with our Chardonnay, they are more likely to take a risk with our other wines, such as Viognier, Tannat, Petit Manseng, Cabernet Franc.... etc.... I guess that has been our approach... Neil Glaser Horton Vineyards

$20 for the current vintage at the winery..... $10 for the 2001 while it lasts. You will find the current Vintage of 2005 on the retail shelves at a sales price of between $12 - $15... depending on the type of store and their mark-up. The sales price on the retail shelves has been in place for 2 years. We haven't fully given up on the $20 retail price for the future. I hope that makes as little sense as it sounds. Neil Glaser Horton Vineyards

You should be able to find the Horton Viognier in the $12 - $15 range on the shelf. The Cab Franc a little bit less. With the Viognier we try to price it to compete with the likes of the RH Phillips EXP. I would have to agree that I find that many local wines (not naming names) are overpriced per quality. At Horton we taste our wines against what we perceive as our competition and invariably that turns out to be California wines. Our standard 2005 Black Cat Chardonnay (approx. $10 list at stores) is a wine that we price to compete with KJ's Reserve Chardonnay. I love presenting the Chardonnay to a restaurant and knocking off KJ's. We like to think we got them beat with quality and price. Wines like Petit Manseng ($20) and Rkatsiteli ($14) are priced not only on quality, but also on the rarity of grape and style. And finally the vintage thing with the Viognier the past few years. Hey, we got way behind. We tried to keep current vintages on the shelf in the real world and tried to move the older Viognier at the winery. We didn't begin this practice until too late, and some older vintages ended up on the shelf. We now have a good program in place and should be able to have young vintages of Viognier on the shelf consistently. Atleast we hope we have learned from our mistakes. The 2005 was our 15th vintage picked, so we are still a fairly young winery working out the kinks. Cheers, Neil Glaser (Horton Vineyards) What's said in Rockwells, stays in Rockwells (right?)