October 7 - October 13, 2012

	Sunday October 7, 2012  A few of you have asked about how my knee is holding up during this Harvest. I am happy to report I am doing well. I did pop a few Ibuprofen in the last two days but I usually get by with two Naproxen a day. Friday my Fitbit said I traveled over 5 miles and yesterday over 6 miles and burned over 3200 calories. I am mostly jumping up and down on the forklift, but as usual there is plenty of walking around also. I am planing to have my other knee done in December. My new left knee does give me some pain when I get up from the computer but when a walk a few steps I have no pain. I have plenty of stairs to navigate in the house so I do feel a little pain going up the stairs. Over all I am happy with my new knee. Yesterday was probably our busiest day. We received 13 tons for Bruce and over three tons of Petite Sirah for us. The Petite Sirah came in at 26% sugar. Percent sugar and brix mean the same so sometimes I use the "Brix" terminology that most of us use in the wine industry. Matt and Salvador left after 6 pm again. In the afternoon Catarino brought in some more sugar samples. On Thursday we got Brix readings of 25.6 on Barbera, 24.8 on Peloursin, 25.6 on Petit Verdot, 26.3 on the 6th block Zinfandel and 27 on Petite Sirah so we picked over half our Petite Sirah. We have no room to ferment the rest. Yesterday we got readings of 23.0 on Souzao, 24.4 on Alvarelhao, 24.6 on Lagrein, 26.0 on Carignan, 24.8 on Cab Franc, 27.2 on Tannat and 25.4 on Cabernet. It is supposed to be cool for the next several days so we may not pick again until the end of next week. The weather people are now talking about a warm up in a week and a small chance of showers in a few days. Matt and Salvador have a lot of pressing to do next week. Yesterday we filled our large water tank with 8.4 tons of Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cab Franc from Forchini for Bruce. We will purchase more food grade dry ice to keep the mass under control. We also have 4.7 tons of Block 4 in a tall Stainless tank and 2.1 tons of Block One in our old milk tank. The both stainless tanks can be controlled with our chiller.  Wednesday October 10, 2012  As I have said before this diary is for me to document what has happened and what I think. Yesterday was one of those days which would have been one to document in detail. We had broken hoses, we had a tractor that did not start, we had disagreements on what club wines to send out, but I had the say on which grapes to pick next......so we are picking more petite sirah...long story. Pillor was here yesterday also so i had to set him straight. He is finally ready to put down a mass of concrete over by our new storage building. If you have been here we do have some concrete. Look, if I had my choice....this whole one acre around our House, Winery and storage buildings....should be concrete....but...of course we do have many areas of gardens and they would remain AND maybe in the future we could plant vines showing all our varieties in areas along a walk way to show what we grow. I will be around for many more years so we will do that....it will be fun. I digress. So Pillor our handyman was here yesterday. I like Pillor because he comes through when I need him. We have talked many times in the last two months. He is busy and I am busy so since i am bringing in all these grapes, he should wait until November OR especially until some rain when it would be easier to dig around here. I want concrete in only a few more areas. It will keep the wine in the barrels with a flat concrete surface to transverse by forklift...right now we bounce a lot when driving over rock. Pillor also wanted to put in a sump pump where it was not necessary...long story.......I set him straight. Today I will escape to Santa Rosa. Like I said we are harvesting Petite Sirah today so I know the sugar will be great and thus I don't need to be here. I have many things to accomplice, the most important...of course is Costco. I have to get my Costco fix. It has been three weeks...this is the longest time all year. Bank...hoses.....dry ice and much more.............. The most important thing happening in the last few days..........I am backing off.........I have to for my Mother.....Lynda and i will get together for ThanksGiving.... OK, there is one more thing in the last two days. I did not mention my problem last Friday. I was to receive my iPhone 5 mentioned back in week 38. I called Fed Ex last Friday when I did not get my iphone 5. They could not find me to deliver. This was at 11:27 AM when we were all here working hard. The driver put a note on the front door saying the business apparently was closed. I was not happy. Seriously, I don't need this phone. I love phones but not to carry on my body so I have only a simple cell now. Plus when I leave this property, most employees are happy not to be listening to me. Even Matt has started to call me El Jefe (a Spanish term meaning "the Chief" or "the Boss."). I know I am generous to my employees and give big bonuses and a good salary as compared to what I hear of other businesses around here. I could go on.....So part of my day today will be to see if I can make a consistent call on my iPhone 5. I got my iPhone Monday and when I started having trouble making calls and receiving calls I got on the real phone....remember the land phone....soon to be forgotten in the next 15 years. So I called Verizon, my carrier, It is a long story and part of the reason to go to Santa Rosa today is to try to receive calls and make calls on my new iPhone 5. Friday October 12, 2012 9:30 Pm:  Last night, there was not enough time to see all events I would like to see....the Vice Presidents debate. I am sure like Pat, you are not interested, but i was, Ryan had no answers but is very likeable....an artist that believes what he talks, but i disagree in most of what he says............long story NFL....I had no time The best times Pat and I have had recently is to watch San Francisco Giants games in the evening. Sometimes that is late but sometimes we have to record and look at much later. One of my favorite people told us the Giants won yesterday at 2PM. It spoiled our whole evening. Pat and I were concerned that someone would reveal the results of the San Francisco Giants game that started at 10am our time. We thought about taking a break but we had to charge our Club members. We have a lot of members and it is a challenge to keep track of all the cards to charge. Pat was on the computer at 3pm and looked distressed. I asked why and she said someone told her who won the Game. We still watched the game but i assumed the Giants had won before I could appreciate it. We love looking at every pitch. Pat said the person was just happy for us. I can't relate. Matt is taking part of the day off tomorrow. He has a Family memorial to attend. This day was his hardest day. Yesterday and a few earlier were more intense for me. Matt got here at 7....I could not sleep so I decided to stay in bed until 7:30. He left about 12 hours after that. When I was informed he would not be here tomorrow.....I was told by Pat he informed us about this Family memorial a few weeks before and I said OK...........we have way too much to do.......tomorrow is another day..... The weather has been very cold and I see the sugars have resided....hey no one knows if that is good or not.................Hang Time (Important to Most, not me) came about after one of these occasions. Some of the desperate people back in one of these similar vintages said hang time improves the quality of the wines produced from that vintage. I have produced some of my best wines from fruit harvested in the first week of September. Here it is the second week in October. This still looks like a great year and I will have more to say tomorrow.    Saturday October 12, 2012 Matt came in early to clean up the press and prepare to press again tomorrow, Sunday. We harvested Petit Verdot yesterday and the sugar came in lower than expected at about 24 brix. We saw a lot of raisins so we assume we still will have decent sugar after the Must warms up. We also harvested our Merlot and some Carignan and both those lots came in over 25% sugar. The crop level on the Petit Verdot was lower than expected and so was the Merlot. The 0.4 tons of Merlot will go into our Aca Modot blend and and half of the 2 tons of Petit Verdot will also go into the Aca Modot. We plan to pick our Barbera Monday.
	For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com Dave
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