Winemaker's Diary for Week 16-19, 2022

	April 17 - May 14, 2022 Monday April 18, 2022 If anyone want's to communicate with Pat, besides me in the next few weeks, I am sorry. Sure Catalina will be here and I will be here answering questions, BUT Pat will be off to Sicily. I will try my best to take care of our customers, but Pat is much better, I will miss her in more ways than say. The Passport event is coming up this week end and Pat will not be here but we will have Duane, Kay, Rick and Sharon to help including of course Catalina and Jesse......it will be fun........ We have a big problem All our expenses have gone up including shipping has gone up to all states including the Eastern states. We have been charging only $20 to ship to the East Coast,,,,.... So everything to the East to ship has costs us more but we have been absorbing the high costs because I think everything involving wine has cost people who love wine, way too much. As most of you know in this Sonoma County, we charge the least for wine, especially if you consider shipping charges.......... So it costs us $50 or more depending the address to ship a case of wine East of the Rockies. But we still want to save all customers money and since we are just doing fine selling wine at the prices we have we are only going to charge $30 a case to the East Coast and hold our cost to Western States to $20.......but gee, our wine clubs will still include free shipping....we are losing money on shipping but still making money on the price of our wine........................ Pat is leaving me, tomorrow is another Day? Tuesday April 19, 2022 So.........I gained 5 pounds since my surgery so I am on a diet again, that always includes less carbs, OH, yes, everyone is different but I lose more weight by doing less carbs and thus less calories, I know calories count, unless as we know some of us do not gain weight because we eat less or.......going on a diet, like me!! , so why Do they......those people who successively achieve the same weight?? do they just Know many calories they consume a day with out thinking?, they are on their perfect diet for them, for me I get off into bad things, like sugar, the worst carbo. Is that the secrete, do people who stay the same weight eat less sugar?? I assume there may be more into this!! So I predict, I will not be around 😭In maybe only 20 years we will take a pill and it will help us to maintain our weight, you can eat what you want, OK, 30 years, but most freedom to eat will come in 20 Pat is gone off to Sicily and unfortunately I am in charge. so be nice to me, Pat is way more in control for all our customers requests. I will try my best......... There will be some good rain here in the next 2 days......then WE have a big event this week end, the Passport Event which has been on hold for two years so it should be fun. Like I said Pat will not be here but we will have Duane, Kay, Rick and Sharon to help including of course Catalina and Jesse......it will be fun........ Wednesday April 20, 2022 I am having fun as usual, I had some Rabbit last night and Turkey wings tonight both braised for a long time,,...of course garlic and onions and bell peppers OH and course some of my very strong deduction sauce from the freezer.......... Then tonight I put in some Skinny pasta, look it up on Amazon, it is so good and has virtually no calories but I know some of you out there do not need to cut our carbs which are in a abundance in regular pasta............ Tonight again I tasted our new 2020 Cab from gapes in Alexander Valley and it was nice compared to the other 3 cabs and sure was much better than another cab from Alexander valley. Friday April 22, 2022 Catalina and Jesse and I even had to get ready for this event tomorrow, the Passport To Dry Creek Valley Monday April 25, 2022 Our event, the Passport To Dry Creek Valley was an enormous success. We had 900 potential customers who will remember us and we did have decent sales and 15 Club sign ups!! We have not had that many people come in on a weekend for over 10 years!! We had great help from Duane, Kay, Rick and Sharon and Susie, my second born poured wine the whole weekend AND I was promised she will be back next Sunday for pizza, pre Birthday, yes I will be 79..... Thursday April 28, 2022 I do this once in awhile in case someone is reading my diary for the first time............ This is my diary and I like to say what is on my mind at the time so tonight there are a few things to mention...... As I have said before about Putin, why are we waiting so long to take this guy out. He has authorized his troops to kill civilians. What is is it taking so long to send supplies and weapons/?? Are we really thinking he is going to use atomic weapons?.................... As most of you know I love my 5 now since 2013 model S Tesla the real ultimate driving machine.....so I have purchased many shares of stock. Today the stock went down again to a place where I did buy only 5 more shares. since Monday we have been having trouble with Fed Ex shipping out of here. We usually ship 50 cases or more out of here every week. Fed EX now is requiring proof to verify our permits to ship to you. So we could not ship this week except to California and we hope to get this figured out for next week........long story Pat is still in Sicily since the 21st but will be back by the 9th of May.........I am trying my best to get through this shipping problem, Pat could have done better......... We just racked our 2021 Cabernet and it is special................ Saturday April 30, 2022 Shipping to all FedEx states is now open........long...........long............story Pat will be back home on May 7th but I am sure she will need until Tuesday May 10 before she can communicate with all customers. As you can imagine, she has shipping on the 9th!!! and a lot of emails to deal with so be patient. Otherwise I am home alone and waiting for next week end starting on the 6th when the whole Family will be here. Kate, Maia and Bryan will be back for my birthday on May 3. And then we celebrate Mothers Day and my birthday next weekend......it will be fun`` Monday May 2, 2022 My birthday is tomorrow so I have been having some great food in the last few days. Yes, I like to celebrating my birthday over many days. Tomorrow Kate, Bryan and I, OH and 3 month old Maia will have pizza!! So last night I had a great dish of lamb and Roast Potatoes. The original recipe was handed down from my Grandmother on my Fathers side, a Sicilian born great cook. My mother and then I would make the dish often AND it was my choice of first dinner home from the Army in 1968!! So back then in the 50's when I lived at home my mother would start with a leg of lamb. First she would cut russet potatoes in 4 pieces length wise. She would then use Star olive oil, a very light one compared to the great Greek olive oil I use lately. She would take a large oval aluminum pan and cover the whole bottom with the olive oil. She would slice up an onion and put the potatoes, rosemary and onion in the pan with garlic of course. The leg of lamb would go in the middle and all would go in the oven at 400 degrees for over an hour. In those times my mother was married to Larry and he wanted the lamb cooked to death, no pink for him!! After the hour or so the pan had some great caramelized juices in it from the lamb, cooked to death. My Mother then would remove everything and take those juices and make the best gravy I ever had. I would mash my potatoes somewhat and cover it in the gravy, so much fun!! These days I do not use a leg of lamb, I use a rack of lamb and only cook it until it is very rare. The lamb stays up on a rack above the potatoes, these days I prefer white sweet potatoes. I put a lot of garlic in and sometimes mushrooms along with the onions. Back in the 50's the potatoes turned out very crispy. These days the white sweet potatoes turn out less crispy but with more flavor. I love eating!! Tonight I am having pasta in a cream sauce with asparagus and the left over rare lamb put in toward the end. I do not boil my pasta. I start with some onions and garlic and Greek olive oil with enough wine to nearly cover the pasta. Depending on the type of pasta, some cook faster than most, I will put the lid on the pot or take it off to evaporate the wine. Stirring of the pasta is a must since it has to cook evenly. I love this method, it is a far better way to cook pasta for me. Tuesday May 3, 2022 My Birthday The pasta did not happen last night because I heard Catalina was coming in today at noon with my favorite Cake, a carrot cake and we all had some at lunch today. I have used for 40 plus years of experience to night and had some nice pizza with Maia, Kate and Bryan and I will have more to say about my Birthday tomorrow.......... Wednesday May 4, 2022 So another day I am alive. I am now officially 79 years old. I am still having fun deciding what to have for dinner on this long week celebration I do every year. So it is nice that this week end is also Mothers day for Pat and now Kate. So tonight I decided on lobster tails on the BBQ drenched with olive oil, garlic, lemon and Romano. Tomorrow I will do chicken Panko in the air fryer, on Friday I will do a pasta with short ribs AND then Pat is home on Saturday so I have to make sure she has a choice of dinner and on Sunday, Mothers Day, the 2 Mothers can choose for dinner..........as you know dinner is my favorite time and of course it is with great wine. Thursday May 5, 2022 I had some nice Panko Air Fryer Chicken tonight. And tomorrow I will have some shortribs cooked a long time and make a pasta and then on Saturday Pat will be back and I have salmon ready for her. Sunday I assume we will have pizza with all the Family here. Oh sure I bought more stocks today, a lot of bargains out there............. Brad: Roast chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables goes really well with sparkling wine Sunday, May 8, 2022 Still celebrating my birthday last night and Pre-Mothers Day we had a great Shrimp, Salmon and Lobster stock Paella. The Rice was fabulous......... Monday, May 9, 2022 So as some of you know the Market is down, so this is the time to buy low and sell high. Sure I am buying, DIS, AMZN and of course today TSLA. You may have stress, buy tomorrow, but the Market will go down more? How many times do I have to say this: In 100's of years before, the market will go up to a new high eventually, otherwise the USA economy will go bankrupt..........long sorry, take a chance, buy your favorite stock as it goes down, it is hard to see losses but, keep buying in small amounts until you get to your limit........... Tuesday, May 10, 2022 Today the market was up a little so I am even on my 25 share short term trade on Tesla. I have bought more high end very expensive wines to compare to mine so I need to make more money to justify, for me, buying wines as much as $500. SOSOSSO I may be near to the end trying to find Cabs any better than mine, , just my opinion.......... Jose is away on Family leave, he and his lady had another child. Everything is done here for awhile and I am looking into a new metal building, just money 30K, It will replace our canopy and be much better to store case goods and empty bottles for future bottling. It will be insulated and have a fan to suck in the cold in the night, last night it got to 35 degrees and in the summer we will have 50's every night so the fan will go on at mid night and go off at 7 in the morning. The price of Bottles have gone up by 100%. They used to cost $6 a case and now the next time we order we will see $12. That is $60,000 a year, but look at it this way, one dollar a bottle and we charge much more than that, so we will survive and still charge on average only $20 a bottle if you are in our club after considering FREE shipping.........Yes shipping has gone up, it costs us $60 to the East Coast per case even with the least weight per bottle than most wineries (Have you lifted up these high end Cabs I have purchased??). Wine is too expensive and we aim to keep our prices down!! BTW, after grossing 1.1 Mill the winery still did not pay much income taxes, I assume because we do not charge too much? Wednesday, May 11, 2022 This is scary time, besides losses in all my latest EV stocks, now even Tesla, TSLA symbol, has been going down again So I have been buying again, especially Tesla, because I believe in it.......any tech stock and any regular company you have faith in or especially use.........BUY, BUY.........The long term average market has always gone up to a new high, some stocks do not recover, so a sell off, I know if the United States goes bankrupt, the market will be "O". But if you have land, what would happen???????I digress So be scared or like me BUY!! Yes you may have big losses but if you have valued stocks you will be fine and make big profits, buy stocks companies you have used OR really believe the company can make a profit soon.........some stocks like Beyond Meat is way below it has been before, so be careful........... Thursday May 12, 2022 Yes, I bought more TSLA today, buy Low, sell high, so yes I have short term loses and I expect to make some more profits. 8pm, I went out to check on the pump..........we had an outage again yesterday so it caused so many resets in our house and vineyard......... So the biggest problem was our 5 year old Smoke Alarm decided to BEEP VERY LOUD every one minute!!!! I told Pat I would cut the wires if it still was not figured out today, she got upset and closed the door very loud, I love her, so she was upset if we do not have the second smoke alarm working upstairs near out Bedroom SOSOSO Today Jesse came up to replace the back up battery, it is already hard wired so it also has a 9 volt battery back up. We tried for two days and finally got the 9 volt battery replaced, it was real hard, Jesse, Salvador, Kate, my first born with a 3.6 old month child could not figure how to get the battery in the right place. Jesse disconnected the whole alarm...........The BEEP went off. And I at 79 figured out how to replace the battery in this small compartment. I tried the 9 volt battery 3 ways and finally the 4th worked, We are not idiots, there were no directions to replace the battery, even inside the compartment or on their website..........tomorrow is another day Friday The 13th, 2022 I am assuming 90% who read this diary do not care what I do in the stock market, but it has something to do with wine as I have said, I justify and also learn when purchasing other wines, how I am doing with the competition. I love comparing. So I am hoping to make money again on these short term trades with TSLA. I have 45 now and after today, I am even. So many problems, like our power was out for 4 hours again last night, Our irrigation pump did not come on, my smoke alarm should be figured out tomorrow, my lights are not working in the Movie Room, my Movie Room, in my house. Today, I spent 3 hours trying to figure out why I can't turn my back lights on in THE MOVIE ROOOM. I gave up after another hour and i am dealing with the center lights, right over my head IN The Movie Room, another hour no luck but I think Jesse will help me tomorrow, I need dimmer lights and the smoke Alarm working again................. Saturday May 14, 2022 Another day of customers who were so happy. We had Shawn and his wife, Tami here who have been customers for over 25 years.Catarino has been dealing with things in Mexico, he says he has some property AND he has been gone for over a week and willbe back Monday to sulfur Kammy
	Dave For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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