September 8 - September 14, 2013

	Monday September 9, 2013 My dream has always been to have a vehicle that does not use oil. I thought as far back as the 70's that solar would take off as a possible component to propel cars. As I have said I have not invested in oil and I am still amazed we have not developed an alternative fuel. I know now it may have to be Tesla that helps us to rethink what is possible. I do not have stock in Tesla........it is way too expensive........Tesla is valued way to high......at 20 billion......... 20 Billion seems high until you look at other companies. I am talking about multiplying the stock market price by the number of shares outstanding. Face Book went public last year and now is valued at 107 Billion.....and there is Google at 292 Billion and the most undervalued company.......Amazon at 135 Billion........Apple is valued at 452 Billion. The highest valued 3D printing company DDD is at only 5.3 billion. The Stock Market is an auction and every minute the evaluation of a company by the Public is questionable..... So my dream was to use no oil and I am old enough and have enough money to see my dream of an all electric car come true. I hope to take delivery of a Tesla next month. We did two tests of Zinfandel today and got 21+ in one area and 23+ in another. It is 104 degrees right now so we still have a chance to pick some this Friday. We have heard Petite Sirah in some areas is ready so we will do a test tomorrow. Catarino tells me the old vine zinfandel in the lowest sugar area today had a lot of second crop small red bunches developing so that may extend the harvest. Also as I said before, we have some mite damage which sucked the green out of some of the leaves. We need green leaves to ripen evenly. Wednesday September 11, 2013 It has been another confusing day as it is Always during Harvest. We received sugar samples from the Petite Sirah 3 sections and they all look ready EXCEPT the acids are still high. I tried two 10 month versions of the 2010 tonight and they still need time. They were the MY Zin and Petite Sirah. I enjoyed them both but most of you would prefer them with food. Harvest.....So confusing......or not.....wait......yes Last year we harvested for the first time Zinfandel on September 18. We had too low sugar and flavors by tasting berries from remaining sections so we waited until September 24 and got what we wanted. In 2009 which is a vintage similar to 2012, great in balance......we started on September 10 and waited another week to pull in great fruit. This year is confusing as usual. With our tests we have been focusing on old vine Zinfandel which is always our first red until Pinot the last two years, but old vine Zin is always ahead of everything else until this year. Old vine zin is about 23 sugar and we want 24+ We are harvesting Zinfandel tomorrow but not Old Vines. Our two sections on Demple clone, young vine zin is looking OK so we will bring in a bin of each tomorrow to see where we are AND our first Syrah is ready so we will probably have more than a ton tomorrow. It will be an exciting day......... Friday September 13, 2013 We did harvest yesterday. All the sugars were 24 or so.....we want 25.......SO we will start again next Tuesday. On average, sugars about this time of year go up about 1.5 brix a week. Our old vine Zin is at about 23 or 24 so we should be good to go there by the end of the week. As I said before Petite Sirah is close also AND we still have two tons left in the section we picked yesterday. Yes, we did harvest Zinfandel and Syrah yesterday from young vines. Usually if not controlled......YOUNG vines will ripen late because there is too much crop on the vines.....you know as kids we wanted to produce more exuberance.....Catarino caught the crop early and dropped half the crop before they were developed. In a way it is sad because that big crop could be plentiful if not thinned and harvested 4 or 5 weeks from now......BUT we know this fruit will be of great quality now. You never know when the rains come and a heavy rain right now could wipe out all the old vine zin around here.
	For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com Dave
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