It’s all hands on deck as cherry retailer Cherry Republic prepares for what they expect to be an extra busy holiday season. Cherry Public House in Glen Arbor will temporarily close (for approximately six weeks) beginning on Monday, November 2 so the entire brewery/eatery staff can support the holiday packing needs at Cherry Republic’s new distribution center on M-72 in Traverse City.

“With many people not being able to travel home for the holidays, we’re expecting to ship an even larger volume of gift boxes than normal this year,” explained Cherry Republic President Bob Sutherland, in a press release. “Add that to what is already our busiest time of year for mail order, and we realized we needed to shift some of our staff to different roles for a short time to make sure we’re covered.”

“I’m so proud of how everyone pitches in for the greater good of Cherry Republic. We really are a family,” Sutherland added.

Cherry Republic’s "Great Hall" retail store in Glen Arbor will remain open for shopping, and the company is still actively seeking packers to hire for the holiday season.

Meanwhile, this past growing season set up the region’s wine industry for a tremendous harvest, and depite October's weather, winemakers are still eyeing the 2020 vintage with high hopes. McKenzie Gallagher, who owns Rove Estate Vineyard & Winery says, "October has been colder and more wet than usual, so we are going to be harvesting into the second week in November." She remains optimistic that 2020 will be the best wine vintage Rove has had in at least a few years.

Mawby announced in its newsletter this week that the winery has wrapped its October harvest, calling it “a rainy one, but a good one…can’t wait to share the 2020 harvest with you.” And winemaker Kasey Wierzba at Shady Lane Cellars’ says she is looking for ways to manage the high workload yet to come. For example, the vineyard crew will hand-harvest its Cabernet Franc grapes in early November. That timing provides less than seven weeks to process more than 100 tons of fruit in their vineyard.

“That’s an insane amount of work to do in such a short time,” she said. “This year I’m looking to pull the trigger on some varieties a little earlier, in an effort to spread our work out.”

She adds that while in many ways harvest is a welcome return to normal, staff at Shady Lane Cellars are also protecting themselves, their families and others by operating in a quarantine pod.

“We have all agreed to operate in a pod here,” Wierzba said. “Our interaction with people outside of work and our close family is limited. There really is no wiggle room to get sick. COVID-19, or not, the grapes are going to ripen, and they are going to need to be picked.”