Christian Hanson spoke to the group last week about wine making in the Berkshires and the venture he and his wife have started Balderdash Cellars. Christian gave us a brief overview of their backgrounds. He grew up in Minnesota, attended high school in Belgium, attended Notre Dame University and then he signed on with GE in Pittsfield as part of their finance team and has been with GE/SABIC for the past 15 years. Donna is a Pittsfield native and 100% Italian and has worked for GE/SABIC for most of her career in a variety of customer service and pricing roles. Growing up in an Italian household, Donna watched her father make wine every year and learned a little bit about what to do and a lot about what not to do. Pursing a dream, their foray into winemaking began only a few years ago with studies at the University of California Davis, a brief harvest internship in Napa, and some small batch production in the basement. Five years ago they grew out of home space and searched Pittsfield for a location that would allow for winemaking as, believe it or not, the fire marshall classifies this business as highly combustible. The basement of the old Pittsfield Rye Bakery on East Street met the conditions and they setup shop there and began selling wines three years ago. They work with six vineyards in California where they have their own rows of vines. The grapes are then pressed, frozen and shipped to Pittsfield. This allows for production at anytime of the year and may very well add to the extraction process for the reds. Their goals are to improve on quality and recognition, enhance their facility & customer experience, and grow from 2,500 to 5,000 cases a year. They are open for wine tastings ever Saturday from 1 to 5pm.
Alexandria has been in the Pittsfield school system since pre-K, and currently attends the Science and Engineering academy at Taconic. Now elevated as Vice President of the academy, her school courses and hands on activities help fuel her love for nature and the outdoors. Alexandria’s hobbies include fly-fishing, archery, 4-H, and playing the flute. She is excited to begin college and plans to study pre-vet and biology.
Pittsfield High School: Carly Yon
You may remember Carly as a recipient of the 2014 Rotary Youth Leadership Award. Throughout her years in high school, Carly has been on the honor and high honor roll. She is a member of the 2016 class council and has been on the PHS swim team for four years, where she was voted as Captain this year. She is involved with the theatre, Cantarella School of Dance, and is an active member of St. Charles church, having sung in the choir for 11 years and as a CCD teacher for the past two years. In addition to school and many activities, Carly works as an associate at Bed Bath & Beyond.
St. Joe High School: Michael Peplowski
Michael has played sports all his life and continues in high school as part of the ski team, track team and Captain of the soccer team. He has received awards for having the highest average in AP history, and certificates for high averages in Religion and Spanish. He was also recipient of the Crusader Award and the Mass Student Athlete Citizenship Award. Mike serves on the District Attorney Youth Advisory Board and volunteers at the food pantry. He plans on attending college next fall and is looking at St. Mike’s, St. Anselm, Assumption, Fairfield, Trinity and Providence College.
Because of a shipment delay delivery to the schools has been postponed to the week of December 14-18. Thank you to the 23 Rotarians who volunteered to deliver the dictionaries to the children. If you are unable to make the switch to the same time the following week, contact Ron Latham.
Don Kuczarski is still looking to fill a two-hour shift for ringing the Salvation Army bells: 11:00 to 1:00 at Walmart on 12/12. Contact Don if you can help.
Preliminary results are back from the auction with $11,000 in donations $1000 raised from te games, $4800 from, ads gross profit is around $65,000 Thanks go out to all that helped the night of the auction as well as those who solicited all the great items
Please remember to use a non-denominational prayer - be respectful of others' beliefs. If you will not be at the meeting, please notify Joel Scussel (joel.scussel@mountainone.com) who your replacement will be in advance.
