February 19 - March 11, 2017

	Tuesday February 21, 2017 So we had a nice weekend. We had all our 2015 16 Month wines open and many new people came in to taste for the first time and were impressed with all the newly bottled 2015 wines. These were very young wines, but that is what I like so it was nice to see several of past customers and new people enjoy them. I want to make great wine for a reasonable price SO I am offering Dave's Cuvee 2017, not yet on our order form for $84 a case to Club members.......... We are making too many wines and we are running out of room in our storage building. Since we sell a third of our wine before it is in the bottle, Futures, eventually we have to find a space on the floor to put a pallet about 4 ft by 4 ft. Futures customers can come in here any day and pick up wine after it has been bottled. We have to have that pallet of wine ready to be accessed, thus flat on the ground with nothing stacked on top of it. Next year we will not be offering most of our Zinfandel blends aged 16 months because I believe Zinfandel is better aged 10 months in barrel. By bottling early I even think the wine will age longer, maybe 20 years if customers like older wines. Starting on March First we will not be offering 16 Month versions for most of our 2016 Futures with Zinfandel in the blend, but just ask and we can save you some. Like I said though for 2017 Pre Harvest Futures coming out at the end of March, Block 4 will be the only Zinfandel based wine which will be offered in both barrel aged versions. So this is how it will look: 10 Month versions only, 100% Zinfandel, My Zin, Carignan, RaiZin, Estate Cuvee, Pinot Noir, Grenache. We will also be offering Syrah and Mourvedre exclusively for our Club and we will not be offering Terre Melange anymore. Dave's Cuvee will be a challenge. It will only be offered in a 10 month version but I have to be careful to make it in the same style like the last few vintages. About 67% of the blend comes from 2nd crop fruit that was either missed or not ripe enough when our great pickers traverse the vineyard for the first time. Since I hope to produce about 1000 cases this year, I want to have Catarino and his crew leave any bunches that are not completely ripe when they go through the first time. That should give us about 10 tons left to pick later, enough for over 600 cases. The fruit will mostly be from our old head trained vines but will also come from other areas. Also the other third will come from extra barrels of wine which are needed in the blends. It would be nice to please everyone but I would have to build another storage area. Like I have said we have many young vines coming on in the next several years which will potentially produce over 1000 more cases. For the 16 Month wines, we will only produce Zp2c, Italiano, Escuro, Petite Sirah, Lagrein, Aglianico, Petit Verdot, Cabernet, Aca Modot and The Ultimate Cuvee. Block 4 will be produced in both versions, even though I prefer it in the 10 month barrel aged version. Monday February 27, 2017 Most of the time I do not look at my past diary entries............ So i will start new.........We went down to the Central Coast for a short trip of 4 days, nice. We bought some wine and enjoyed a visit with great friends. I am back now and we have decisions to make about what we will be offering in our soon to be 2017 Pre-Harvest wines.......... I have tasted many wines as usual in the last many days and as I have said before, I need to make less kinds of wines, so less labels......... I tasted Estate Cuvee again. That is the wine I won a gold in 1995 for the 1994, the first blend of Cab and Zin, except for jug wines, Hearty Burgundy was nice because of fruit from Dry Creek Valley and, maybe confusing the judges, but that wine won a gold after 6 weeks in the bottle. I thought it was a great wine and hoped for a gold, and it was a nice day? Maybe I have to taste more of my wines, but I taste them all the time, especially here at home. I am thinking even though Estate Cuvee won a gold in 1995, it needs time.........so maybe in both versions or maybe only in 16 Months version...............   Monday March 6, 2017 We had a nice weekend with about 1000 people come in and buy our wines, we offered only barrel samples but some customers purchased older bottled wine. I love these weekends and we have another upcoming this weekend. https://www.wineroad.com/events/barrel-tasting/................We are hopping!! for better weather because last week end was raining all the time............ I am confused!! I thought even though Trump won he would change a little and be a sort of normal president. I think not now so I think this should be interesting because we may find there have been many other questionable presidents in our past, but will any of them step up to this........... 8:00 Pm: I always have problems unrelated to our winery or especially politics and my real passions like Tesla and the stock market. One nice customer reminded me I talked about my ice maker way back when and had interesting problems, look it up? so I talked to him for a short time and so I should talk about other problems in my life LIKE SMOKE ALARMS................ OK, Pat and I have a problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most every morning for the last several months at about 6 in the morning when our heater goes on we hear a beep, chirp, something like that and it goes on for about two hours every 30 seconds.  SSSSSOOOOOOOOOOO, I am not like Trump, I assumed I had a bad battery in this Smoke Alarm SOOOOOO I replaced the battery of course and put a new one up and the beeping continued. SSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we don't know what to do after trying everything with the help of friends and two great tweak people we have hired for many years........... I called a local guy and he will be out tomorrow morning, hopefully when the beep starts at 7 or 8......... Tuesday March 7, 2017 The local electrician showed up this morning but there was no beeping from a smoke alarm. The new smoke alarm was not connected and was on our counter top so the past beeping was not coming from this new smoke alarm. The electrician looked up in the ceiling and saw only wires coming out so he insisted the beeping could not be coming from up on the whole in the ceiling with wires not connected to anything. He looked in the bath near by and the bedroom near by and then in the closet and he found a smoke alarm. A week ago or so I heard beeping so I took an old smoke alarm down from the ceiling. I guess while I was replacing it, I put this old 10 year lithium battery operated smoke alarm in the closet and forgot it was in there. As soon as we opened the closet door the beeping started again. I am so happy now!!! The electrician took the old beeping one away and will replace all our smoke alarms with new ones. The mystery beeping has been solved.............Now back to winemaking Friday March 10, 2017 Today I guess I did a lot of winemaking, not really I had to do our inventory, complicated for me. The Feds want to know how much wine is in here if it is not paid for so after bottling the feds say OK, just give us our money. If they wanted to be nosy they have the right to have all wineries report every two weeks. The feds have the right to come in here at anytime unannounced.: I have related this story many times, but probably not in this diary but do check.........I do not want to be known as someone repeating a story more than once.............:::::: Back in 1992, I with others attended the Passport To Dry Creek Valley. We did not have a winery then but I loved the event. In about 1992, I waited in line to check out Rafanelli. Dave's Father was a legend and Dave did a great job to make the best wine in Dry Creek Valley and he did it. When I went up to Dave in the long line, he gave me a bottle of his wine, his latest. Dave and I went back to Gallo days and waited in line then to deliver grapes so I had known him for 13 years at that time. I was so happy since Pat and I along with Rick, Sharon, Russ and Marlene enjoyed tasting ALL the Zins from Dry Creek Valley that night including Rafanelli 1991 which was not released yet............ I had made amateur wine for several years then, 13 years since 1979 and I thought I made good wine so I stopped by unannounced to Rafanelli in the middle of the next week to drop off one of my amateur wines I was proud of. Dave greeted me but did not look happy so I looked around and I saw the Feds coming in, I think, two or three of them. Dave had to let them in to look around and I guess also to check his records. After I gave him the wine and he had let the feds in, he went out side with a rifle and started shooting bird nests up in the rafters. I assumed he was not doing anything wrong and of course had the right to shoot off bullets in front of the feds. After I started the winery in 1994 I expected the same intrusion from the feds, but of course I was not going to shoot off a rifle. To this day, no one has come in to inspect the winery. In 1993 there was a big shootout in Waco Texas and the feds closed the office in Santa Rosa and also broke apart the ATF into Alcohol (TTB) and Tobacco and Firearms. They are obviously too busy to be concerned about Alcohol now with all the problems with firearms..........
	For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com Dave
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