Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
We arrived about 2:45 after stopping at Patricia Lake and we were told it may take awhile. So we had planned to eat in so maybe we wanted a snack now? Pat was hungry I can always wait for my dinner. I hate having anything to make me full, but of course a cocktail at 3 or so? I was very thirsty because I do not drink any water in the morning if I have to drive. I do not want to stop, we had 155 miles to drive to Jasper with several stops for pictures, some posted last week. So yes I thought I could have a cocktail before 5??? As some of you know I do not taste alcohol before 5, rarely, sometimes with Rick and Tim around Xmas. ............Sorry I digress again
I headed off to a bar in the open lobby, probably several hundred feet all around. I was not happy to see many dogs all over the outside and interior so I assumed it was a dog friendly hotel. Is that why the manager had to inspect our room? I thought about Gin and Tonic, I still have not had one to this day for 2 years. I was ignored at the bar but we had time so I headed out to the outside patio, remember it was over 70 degrees and we were used to 50. A nice lady we saw later again asked me what I wanted and I said what I wanted but I had to find my wife. Pat came a few minutes later and we waited several minutes with no help. Maybe I was impatient? Of course Pat and I talked about when we would have a room. After a while we headed up to the check in desk where more new people arrived. The Whole time there, we saw different people so they obviously are not over worked. I try not to talk about negative things but this was not good...........
After an hour, and two attempts at the front desk by Pat and I to be really nice we were finally told at 4:20 our lake view room was ready. I was so happy because I was told it was their best room...................We were told it was near. I asked to have our stuff moved over to our room and the nice lady said sure. Finally a few minutes later we were delayed again. I needed a drink as you know and I had begged a little water...... but I needed a drink!!!!
We were informed by the still nice lady, she could escort us over there but it was not far. Like an idiot, I said we can make it over there!!~!!!
Well as I said my knee was not in good shape but gosh just around the corner? We went around one building and another and I got hot walking at over 70 degrees for a change and I had driven 160 miles with many stops..........OK, I know you people are young, but watch out when you get older. Finally after a while we found our suite right on a beautiful lake. I walked in and was immediately shocked by the air. There was no air. The room had been closed up before or after the inspection. We were told there was a delay because the manager had to approve the room. We had no idea what that meant. I knew immediately I had to find the AIR,,,,.....I looked and found a heat register and tried to convert to air. After a while we called and found out there was no air conditioning. It had to be close to 80 in the room...................
Then I looked out our window and saw nothing but people walking by. We had no privacy, that was OK for now? Pat walked to the beach and I complained to my self!! I had many complaints, maybe because of the great suite we had in Lake Louise. So By that time I had time to figure out how to get a drink. Before we left the lobby, we had asked where to get some ice. We were told there was no ice we could get by ourselves so a guy had to go to a back room and hand us a bag of ice, another long story, but that is what I had in this hot room, a bag of ice...........I took a sip of my first Tequila and it was fine and then I had a few tastes of water and then I had to take a walk to the Washroom as they call it in Canada. I took a pee and then flushed and nothing happened. Is that why the manager had to inspect? I called and a nice guy came by and fixed it. It still did not work well. I had to take to top off and jiggle the lever each time. We had reservations at a nice interesting restaurant but I was in no mood anymore so we headed off to the outside patio again and saw the nice new girl and she remembered that I needed some potato fries when I was there earlier. We ordered a bottle of nice Pinot Grigio and I was happy for awhile.
I Decided to complain to the manager. We did some business with our new Fairmont card several months ago so we had two free nights at this Jasper Hotel. I was so upset and told the manager we wanted to leave tomorrow morning and give up the next day of free stay. He said OK.
So on May 22 we headed back down the road toward Lake Louise again. This time we turned off heading West. We had a 300 mile trip over to Revelstoke, BC with a charge in Hope, BC. We had planned to stay one night at The Sutton Place Hotel Revelstoke Mountain Resort, but after the disappointment at Jasper we decided to stay two nights. We gained an hour back from Mountain Time but we did delay enough to check in about 3pm again. We were told to head off to this room that should have been the mountain view I had booked and it was small and down low with virtually no view. What was amazing it was even hotter here, 85 degrees outside so the room was very warm again. I fooled around with the thermostat and could not figure out if there was AIR. After many minutes I finally figured out there was air, cool. This time Pat complained of our room and location and we were moved to a much nicer room, a mix up on their part. We were starting to believe, we had to step up, if we wanted something better and what we ordered. This was a condo with kitchen and even had a washer and drier which we used. We ate in one night and had a decent dinner at their restaurant the next night. The extra night was well worth the extra $250 after such a bad experience at the Fairmont Jasper.
3:00Pm: The next day Wednesday May 24 we headed South to visit two of our customers who live in the Canadian wine country, in Penticton, BC. We had a nice lunch with them and they took us around to a few local wineries. Pat tasted but I am not into tasting wine during the afternoon, especially when I still had to drive to our next place to stay. So at about 2pm we headed South near the Washington border to The Watermark Beach Resort, Osoyoos, BC, about 40 miles, but took well over an hour and a half. I had upgraded to a one bedroom suite with a bottle of sparkling wine and dinner in with a breakfast burrito the next morning. I was told we could charge our Tesla in the upper garage so a young guy showed me where to go. Later that evening I got lost looking for my car. We had to walk through two doorways leading to two staircases. I was helped later by the front desk. When I was showed into the suite by the young guy, I immediately asked if this was a one bedroom suite and he said yes and showed me the bottle of sparkling wine in the frig. There was no separate bedroom.
After the big lunch we decided to order a small pizza in for the evening. We found the order book and called on the phone to find out the options. I still had not had a drink, 6pm. We saw on the form we had to cook the pizza and also the burrito the next morning. I looked around and I saw no oven............!! I headed down to the front desk and asked if we were in the one bedroom suite we had ordered and she said no this was a junior suite. After many minutes we agreed she had messed up. Back a month ago I had changed the date and also upgraded to the one bedroom suite, a bottle of sparkling and the breakfast burrito. She had changed the date and added the extras but did not change our reservation to the one bedroom suite. She also noticed I was charged for the one bedroom suite. She said she would adjust that. I also asked to drop the sparkling wine (Not in the mood) and cancel the burrito and the pizza since we could not cook them. The next morning the sparkling wine was still to be charged, even though the young guy had picked it up the night before. By 6:45 I had my first of two Tequilas. We went down to the restaurant and picked up a paella dish, warm and brought it to the room. That is not the end!!
I had asked the nice young guy to come back the next morning at 8am and help us with the luggage and of course to find my Tesla. At 7:55 I decided to ask about the luggage and found out the nice young guy was not in yet. The nice new lady at the front desk told me they would have someone come up immediately and help us. I decided to try to find my Tesla again with no avail. Again I had to ask for help. I was supposed to head up to the front of the hotel with my Tesla and meet the new person and Pat with our luggage. After waiting 10 minutes, I finally saw Pat coming out with half our luggage. She said no one had showed up and she had also found out about the sparkling wine still being charged. She headed up and came back down with the rest of the luggage and we were thankfully off to The United States at 8:30am....................
Tuesday June 6, 2017
Wisconsin, Pat is off with her sisters, Janie and Sharon to see Giants baseball games so I will miss her for a week, but I know how to cook..............pizza Yesterday and chicken tonight
So I should talk about bottling in July, later. As you can imagine most of my day is organizing the vineyard and the wine making.................Catarino, and his wife Martha and Salvador have told me the vines have so much growth because we had a lot of rain and we have to thin the crop to control the quality.
Now on to the last four days of our trip: On May 25 we crossed back in the United States. For some reason it took well over 30 minutes to get through. We have no idea why!! When we got up to the gate we were only asked where we originated from so it took less than a minute after showing our passports. We stayed at a nice place right on the water North of Seattle. It was called The Silver Cloud Inn at Mukilteo. This is where the Ferry crosses to Whidbey Island. When we approached to the hotel at 3pm we saw blocks and blocks of cars lined up to load on to the ferry. There was only one narrow lane to navigate down these several blocks and turn into the hotel. We had a nice room that looked right onto the water. It was unique since there were two French doors that opened to just a railing with the water down three floors up. It was OK though because we could either lean out onto the railing one foot from the French Doors or with the sun shinning in we could put a chair right up to the opening. There was a restaurant right next door so we headed over there at 6:30 and had a wonderful dinner, even though our main course was put down before we had finished our appetizers. We assume the restaurant is used to moving the ferry people in and out quickly? I had Razor Clams and they were some of the best I have had.
Wednesday June 7, 2017
On May 26 we headed down to Springfield, Oregon to stay at a Best Western again. We had a nice dinner once more at The Hop Valley Brewing Company and I even bought 22 bottles of their Alpha Centauri IPA, 9% alcohol. The price for 22 bottles, 24 ounces was $45 net, no sales tax in Oregon. I had a great beef burger cooked to medium rare and onion rings, nice. The beer was filling so only one but of course I had a tequila or two before.
Then on the 27th we headed to Ashland to see a play. It was hot, about 85 degrees and I had to walk several blocks on my weak knee!! The play was a treat being in the first row. Several times my Birkenstocks were barely missed by actors running all over the place. It was amazing to see some of these actors only a few feet away, singing and dancing. The play was Shakespeare In Love, similar to the famous movie. The parking situation at the hotel was a mess again. Free charging but up to the top garage again through a narrow drive way. At first I could not navigate it so we decided to try the back way, one way, so Pat had to guard to make sure no one was entering. The drive way stated, compact cars! Why would they install a Tesla charger there when Tesla Model S are very long and wide cars?
The last night on May 28th may have been the hardest. The charger was easy because it was outside but I had booked another Bed and Breakfast hotel, their best room. I was obviously not thinking when I booked it a few months ago. This was in the town of Eureka, 200 miles North of us. I checked in across the street and found out the flat, 2 bedrooms and a large bath and hallway was up three steep flights of stairs. I am too old for this!! We had to carry up our several bags. My legs hurt for several days after walking up and down four or 5 times.
That is it, we were home by noon on May 29. Overall a trip I will never forget, what a trip in more ways than not. We really enjoyed most of it........the obstacles, food, driving and scenery made it interesting for sure.............
Now back to more wine. I have purchased a bunch of high end chardonnays from Sonoma, Napa and France, all well over $50 a bottle. I am planning to make two white wines this year, probably the same blend but one will be fermented in stainless only and one will be aged in a nice oak barrel. Most of the wines I will try will be compared to Ramey chardonnay, by far my favorite white now.
Late at night, could get in trouble with Pat.........
Thursday June 8, 2017
It rained today rare in June, but only 0.16 inches. We are ready for an interesting growing season as usual. but there will be no rain for at least over three months. That is how we have great weather to grow the best grapes...........
8:00 Pm: As you know I have taken many chances in my life, if interested look back in this diary which started in 1998. I was a better writer then, because Pat wanted to make it right? She was good so take a look back then..........SO:
This is a notice to my wife, even though she will not see this. She does not read my diary because she usually hears it from me before uploaded. So this is brave: though She is in Wisconsin,
I have MOSTLY decided to order another Tesla Model S, not because I don't love the one I have but I have a lot of stock in this company so this is research, laugh all you want but the only reason I purchased TSLA, Tesla stock is I believed in the Model S, two I have purchased so far............If Pat saw this she would be upset so I must wait to tell her when she comes home on Monday so you are the first to hear...........even not my daughters.......I will listen, but
So I will document my mistakes purchasing TSLA. At one time I had 1150 shares at 195, that would be worth $425,000 today. Trump was elected and the next day I sold all my stocks, including Amazon and Google. I had big profits but not in Tesla. I only took a $5000 Profit. I did make $10000 in old trades.........so the day after and a few days later the stock went down to 183, so I said, I still believe in Tesla, my second Model S at that time. I bought back 750 shares because I believed in my two Model S. I have sold 250 shares now at a profit of many dollars, but if I sold my last 500 shares, then combined I would have a profit of $130,000 SSSSSOOOOOOO I deserve another Tesla?, state of the art.............They are offering me $70,000 for a trade so I can cover the difference easy with my profits. Do I wish I had all 1150 shares now, sure but as a long time trader, you only make profits when you sell. I love my Model S...............
So Pat likes Pearl White with metallic showing so I think she will have little complaints.........maybe Kate or Susie will pay me for my car?
I know I am trouble. I may change my mind................
Friday June 9, 2017
8:30AM: I have slept on it. So do I need another Tesla?, no. Should I get one?, maybe not? TSLA the stock is up another 7 points to 377. Should I sell my last 500? If I thought the Market was heading down soon, I would say yes, but I have been wrong so far this year since I have sold most of my stocks I had before the election. Sure I have locked in a lot of profits so I could purchase another Tesla Model S, 100D. The difference in my Model S 90D and a 100D is different for a few reasons. The 100D is still 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds which is all I need, I am too old to think about having a faster car. The 100D does have a new closed, smooth front which is interesting because it shows no vents, of course because there is no engine to cool down. The 100D will go another 40 miles on a charge. That probably is not important now because my 90D will still go over 240 miles at 80 miles an hour, far longer than I need. I like to stop and take a break every few hours. If this 100D is the last car I will own the extended range would be nice to have when the batteries start to age. The 100D has the first HEPA air filter system which filters out all bacteria and allergies from entering the cabin. Most of all the 100D will be capable of full self-driving. It has 4 cameras, vs one in my 90D and 12 ultrasonic sonar sensors. In the next year or so all you will have to do is get in the car and tell it where to go. I could go on but the bottom line is it is state of the art.
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
On May 16 a Tuesday we headed up to the border crossing into Canada. I left home with 6 bottles of My sparkling wine and 12 bottles of 2014 Block 4, one consumed with Susie. I also had filled two empty bottles of my wine with the label on it with Tequila And another bottle of Tequila in a Soda Stream bottle. I knew I would have to pay the duty on the extra bottles. I have heard Canada charges a duty of the same price as the wine, so if the wine costs $20 I would pay a duty of $20 per bottle. I decided to somewhat be honest so when the guy at the border asked if I had any alcohol I told him"about 12 bottles". He asked me to park my car and go into the building across the way. I told the person there that it was my own made wine and I had some samples for appointments in hope to sell some wine in the future to restaurants in Banff and and Jasper, mostly true. I was then sent off to another building way across the way. This time I met a smiling person and I complimented him for being so cheery. He said you know you have to pay a duty and I said I knew that. He asked how much the wine sold for and I said "It costs me about $8 to make it and it sells at retail for $25 but most of the wine we sold was discounted to about $15. He then sent me off to the first building across the way again. I walked in and was greeted by the first guy I saw at the crossing, still not smiling. He immediately said "You are good to go". I said thank you and hurried out to my Tesla. I was very happy. That evening we stayed at another place that had a high bed.......more later.........
8:00 Pm: We headed up to this place I had high expectations about 150 miles into Canada. Pat loves Bed and breakfast places, I do not. This was called a resort so I was not expecting a parking lot way down below. With my old legs, I managed to bring up most of our bags through a long transition to the main check in, no elevator again. One guy was so interested in my Apple watch band, I have had several comment on this neat band, I noticed they were just nice. We lugged our stuff down the long hall way and we had help. Pat liked the food, I thought it was OK. They were very nice but this was the first time I realized.....: I should have never asked for the best room.............I should not ask for a nice room................It was way down to the end of a long hall way but very nice. But we had to head out to the restaurant down the same long hall wall. I know most of you would have no problem with this, but my back and knee were still having problems. Pat enjoyed it but she said and I agreed the highway above the river was noisy. Seriously I live on Dry Creek Road and it is noisy too.........More tomorrow...........Lake Louise!!!!
Wednesday May 31, 2017
I forgot to mention our trip on the way to the South Thompson Inn & Guest Ranch in Kamloops, BC mentioned above on Tuesday May 16. After charging in Hope, BC we started up a grade into the mountains on the way to Kamloops to charge at another Tesla Supercharger. We had heard there could be some snow flurries at Lake Louise when we were to arrive there on Wednesday. So after climbing up a grade Pat mention there was some flakes hitting our windshield and sure enough a few minutes later there were many flakes of ice accumulating. After a few more minutes after we headed up higher in the mountains we actually got snow!! I had to slow down to 45 miles an hour and so did everyone else except for two government vehicles which I assumed were clearing some of the snow off the road. One point when when reached the summit, there was at least one foot of snow on the road. My All wheel drive Tesla had no trouble moving through at about 45. After heading down the snow slowly disappeared.........
I was really anxious to stay at The Fairmont Lake Louise so we booked 4 nights May 17 through May 20 in the most impressive suite in the hotel.
Below is a picture on The Fairmont Lake Louise website of the suite we stayed in. Below that was my picture in the same suite on May 20 showing the turquoise lake frozen over.
Below is the bottom floor of the suite with a spiral staircase leading up to the balcony you see in the first pictures. That means I had to climb up more stairs just like the last two places we stayed at. When I first went in the suite I was shocked to see the lake frozen over. That is not what I saw back in 1968 in July. I was told the lake is frozen over until sometime in June.
8:00 Pm: Like I said I was shocked. I wanted turquoise in a clear lake. I have to load up soon the picture I took in 1968 on my back......Lake Louise then was amazing. So It was real nice being there for 4 nights and each night I saw frozen Lake Louise. But it was amazing to see all that snow. The stair case was a small problem...........everytime I wanted to go out on this neat balcony, I went up stairs to our King Bed, it was 40 degrees or lower. It did get up to 50 one day, every night we opened the window..............I still wore shorts during the day............The restaurants there were really nice and we went to the Post Hotel on a Saturday night. The food was great and we even got a free ride over for 3 miles..........as you know I do not drive at night time after having a few tastes...........More tomorrow..............
Thursday June 1, 2017
Today I walked out into the vineyard and I was amazed at all the growth. With all the rain we had this Winter and Spring I was not surprised. The fruit set has been great also so we probably will be making over 6,000 cases this year. I need to find a place for the wine................
On May 18 we woke up to overcast skies in our large suite at Lake Louise and by noon we did see a little sunlight SO we headed off to the town of Banff about 35 miles away. There is another nice Fairmont hotel there and we had thought about staying there but some of the restaurants were closed. The next day was clear so we headed off to Banff again to take a gondola ride to the top of a mountain. The second picture way above was taken from the top. It was amazing. The final day at Lake Louise we traveled 80 miles, more than half way to Jasper, to see the Ice Fields. Tomorrow I will up load some of the fantastic pictures we took on the way up and back. BTW, everyday our Tesla was charged at Lake Louise Fairmont Hotel and the Valet guys were so nice and there was no fee. I will have more later.............
Friday June 2, 2017
Below are several pictures taken on out trip from Lake Louise in Banff to the Fairmont Hotel in Jasper. This first picture is called bridal falls. We assume the snow showing now turns into falls later in the summer.
Pat took many more pictures but this is the only decent one I took at the Ice Fields look out. A few years ago this place opened up where you can walk out on a glass walk way and see below all the ice.
A beautiful rushing river
One of many jagged peaks in the Canadian Rockies
Below is a fantastic picture of a partially thawed lake.
And two more turquoise rivers
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Now I am set for tomorrow? I will be here all day preparing for my Colonoscopy on Wednesday, easy. I will drinking tequila and Coffaro wine on Wednesday evening after the start of the shaft..........at 12:30. 5PM I am home by 3 then I will have fun on Wednesday night. I have no Idea what I will want, but maybe for a long time I will make me a Lamb burger with a lot of cheese on it. This is a long one....maybe later but I had French Onion Soup to night...........
8:30 Pm: Yes i made French onion soup mostly from Julia's recipes from many books of hers. I was happy tonight but I wanted more onions..............
So the best part of the recipe is making a beef or other strong fowl or meat sauce and take 2 hours. I have for several years made my own strong stock by using mostly uneaten bones from our dinner. Seriously some may not approve BUT Even if some bones have been used that night they will be boiled and simmered for 10 hours at the least. So I have many times done this reduction and now I have plenty for Brad and Dri. Brad's Birthday is April 25. They will be here on the 24th and 25th. We will have pizza one night and French Onion Soup variation by Coffaro the other night...........
so like I said I do this reduction stock to extreme concentration. I even gave a taste to Catarino who prefers his food to mine, as we have traded over the years........actually he loved this reduction, Julia called it essence, I think........
So tonight Pat and I tried out this soup to see if it would work for Brad. Brad is tough, he like, I am, love what we do, cooking!!! so every 6 months we have to have a pizza judging contest and Pat and Dri love both pizzas and Brad and I judge. He always prefers his which is fine and I like his also.............
So to get back to this soup tonight. I only had bread from my nice visit with Vivien yesterday. Pat provided a potato salad and Ham for sandwiches. as most of you know My Mother is 95 and doing well now........So this bread Pat had purchased yesterday was light nice French but not dense. On my plate I decided to double up on these nice cheese, olive oil crisp pieces of bread I kept at 325 degrees for 35 minutes, Seriously, they were nice by them self. I was not happy with the amount of onions like I said so I reduced the soup to concentrate the onions in a smaller amount but it also concentrated the reduction stock. We both were over whelmed and could not finish all of our bowls, probably we only consumed 3 cups together........
I can't have this left over soup tomorrow. Tomorrow I am not allowed anything but clear liquids until 5 when I have to have the concoction of awful stuff. I will survive...........
Wednesday April 19, 2017 The Day
8: 00Pm: I survived!! I had no POLYPS. I had polyps in 2007 and 2012, now after 5 more years they wanted to make sure I do not have polyps which have to be removed. I drink more Tequila now so that is why I had none this time so................The Polyp doctor said he will not see me again. I guess I will be around for awhile if I don't get something else.......
Jose took me down and picked me up and we had a nice conversation, we talked all the way down and back. All my employees are great so it was nice to be with Jose one on one...........
So I just got back from my espresso after a few days AND. Trying to be nice and mellow and it is pouring down rain again. but it may be better NOW, they, the rain gods, had predicted many days in a row, rain and but now it looks like we are getting a small amount of a short time tonight and then we are ready for Spring, but around here, Spring can tern to Summer quickly. It is amazing these vines have not grown for two weeks, it is time for growth......yes prediction is hot weather now...........
Friday April 21, 2017
9:15 Pm: I have not had a Heineken for months, like I have said some people don't like the smell. I like it so I am happy with less alcohol this late in the night, I am guessing less that 5% SO I like less alcohol late in the night...........
Josh lost his last girlfriend, LIA. I even was nice to her: I said she should hear Roy Orbison's LIA. She did not know the song. So I figured she was cool?.........
So Lia is gone and Josh has a new girlfriend so he is back, after several weeks of looking for a separate place to stay. As we know it is cheaper by the pair so let's hope it works out........
I had an interesting idea yesterday after hearing some one bottled a still wine in a crown cap, like beer cap like we have done since 2004. I thought of something along time ago..........
Back in about mid eighties so it is hard to remember this thing that just popped in my mind, I know this time it is because it made an impression for a small time one day.......
I was up at Fritz Winery and had to check out where I would deliver my Sauvignon Blanc Grapes to them. I was only a Grape Grower then, not promoting my own wine, and this guy I had not seen before comes in and says he has the answer to preserve wine for ever...........
As an armature wine maker and someone who was interested in making wine to sell, this guy was interesting. Back then I had no money in the bank. I was borrowing a lot of money on my property so I owed about 200 plus thousand.........
So this guy said he could preserve wine by keeping it at 40 degrees and pull a bottle out when we needed it and have a perfect example of what that wine was, like from that very Harvest. All Harvests are different so WE, several in the Fritz office........looked at him: Nice idea BUT we were trying to make wine in a new vintage every year and the past is not what we want.........
So I saw a short note that someone bottled a wine in a crown cap, well we have done that since 2009 with our sparkling wine. Crown caps have been used mostly for beer and they keep the carbonation in. Now if we bottled a wine, red or white in a crown cap and kept the wine at 40 degrees or any temperature, would the wine age?
Tuesday April 25, 2017
In July and next January, Josh and I have decided to seal a small amount of our Red and even white wine in crown cap to see how they develop over time.......
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.co
Now I am set for tomorrow? I will be here all day preparing for my Colonoscopy on Wednesday, easy. I will drinking tequila and Coffaro wine on Wednesday evening after the start of the shaft..........at 12:30. 5PM I am home by 3 then I will have fun on Wednesday night. I have no Idea what I will want, but maybe for a long time I will make me a Lamb burger with a lot of cheese on it. This is a long one....maybe later but I had French Onion Soup to night...........
8:30 Pm: Yes i made French onion soup mostly from Julia's recipes from many books of hers. I was happy tonight but I wanted more onions..............
So the best part of the recipe is making a beef or other strong fowl or meat sauce and take 2 hours. I have for several years made my own strong stock by using mostly uneaten bones from our dinner. Seriously some may not approve BUT Even if some bones have been used that night they will be boiled and simmered for 10 hours at the least. So I have many times done this reduction and now I have plenty for Brad and Dri. Brad's Birthday is April 25. They will be here on the 24th and 25th. We will have pizza one night and French Onion Soup variation by Coffaro the other night...........
so like I said I do this reduction stock to extreme concentration. I even gave a taste to Catarino who prefers his food to mine, as we have traded over the years........actually he loved this reduction, Julia called it essence, I think........
So tonight Pat and I tried out this soup to see if it would work for Brad. Brad is tough, he like, I am, love what we do, cooking!!! so every 6 months we have to have a pizza judging contest and Pat and Dri love both pizzas and Brad and I judge. He always prefers his which is fine and I like his also.............
So to get back to this soup tonight. I only had bread from my nice visit with Vivien yesterday. Pat provided a potato salad and Ham for sandwiches. as most of you know My Mother is 95 and doing well now........So this bread Pat had purchased yesterday was light nice French but not dense. On my plate I decided to double up on these nice cheese, olive oil crisp pieces of bread I kept at 325 degrees for 35 minutes, Seriously, they were nice by them self. I was not happy with the amount of onions like I said so I reduced the soup to concentrate the onions in a smaller amount but it also concentrated the reduction stock. We both were over whelmed and could not finish all of our bowls, probably we only consumed 3 cups together........
I can't have this left over soup tomorrow. Tomorrow I am not allowed anything but clear liquids until 5 when I have to have the concoction of awful stuff. I will survive...........
Wednesday April 19, 2017 The Day
8: 00Pm: I survived!! I had no POLYPS. I had polyps in 2007 and 2012, now after 5 more years they wanted to make sure I do not have polyps which have to be removed. I drink more Tequila now so that is why I had none this time so................The Polyp doctor said he will not see me again. I guess I will be around for awhile if I don't get something else.......
Jose took me down and picked me up and we had a nice conversation, we talked all the way down and back. All my employees are great so it was nice to be with Jose one on one...........
So I just got back from my espresso after a few days AND. Trying to be nice and mellow and it is pouring down rain again. but it may be better NOW, they, the rain gods, had predicted many days in a row, rain and but now it looks like we are getting a small amount of a short time tonight and then we are ready for Spring, but around here, Spring can tern to Summer quickly. It is amazing these vines have not grown for two weeks, it is time for growth......yes prediction is hot weather now...........
Friday April 21, 2017
9:15 Pm: I have not had a Heineken for months, like I have said some people don't like the smell. I like it so I am happy with less alcohol this late in the night, I am guessing less that 5% SO I like less alcohol late in the night...........
Josh lost his last girlfriend, LIA. I even was nice to her: I said she should hear Roy Orbison's LIA. She did not know the song. So I figured she was cool?.........
So Lia is gone and Josh has a new girlfriend so he is back, after several weeks of looking for a separate place to stay. As we know it is cheaper by the pair so let's hope it works out........
I had an interesting idea yesterday after hearing some one bottled a still wine in a crown cap, like beer cap like we have done since 2004. I thought of something along time ago..........
Back in about mid eighties so it is hard to remember this thing that just popped in my mind, I know this time it is because it made an impression for a small time one day.......
I was up at Fritz Winery and had to check out where I would deliver my Sauvignon Blanc Grapes to them. I was only a Grape Grower then, not promoting my own wine, and this guy I had not seen before comes in and says he has the answer to preserve wine for ever...........
As an armature wine maker and someone who was interested in making wine to sell, this guy was interesting. Back then I had no money in the bank. I was borrowing a lot of money on my property so I owed about 200 plus thousand.........
So this guy said he could preserve wine by keeping it at 40 degrees and pull a bottle out when we needed it and have a perfect example of what that wine was, like from that very Harvest. All Harvests are different so WE, several in the Fritz office........looked at him: Nice idea BUT we were trying to make wine in a new vintage every year and the past is not what we want.........
So I saw a short note that someone bottled a wine in a crown cap, well we have done that since 2009 with our sparkling wine. Crown caps have been used mostly for beer and they keep the carbonation in. Now if we bottled a wine, red or white in a crown cap and kept the wine at 40 degrees or any temperature, would the wine age?
Tuesday April 25, 2017
In July and next January, Josh and I have decided to seal a small amount of our Red and even white wine in crown cap to see how they develop over time.......
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.co
In the 1960s, Rickles was welcomed for the first time to the "Tonight Show" with Carson. He sat down on the couch and muttered, "Hello, dummy." The studio audience was initially startled, but when the host began laughing uncontrollably, so did everyone else. He appeared countless more times, haranguing Carson about not being invited more often or mocking his own love life.
"I love my wife, but she's ill," was a typical joke. I recorded many of the shows even though it was only sound. It was a fun time for me.......
Saturday April 15, 2017
8:00 Pm: BTW Pat and Janie are there in San Francisco today. The game is over now and I always record.
It will be fun navigating my Model S. I am heading down for a few hours to pick up Pat and to see Vivien Coffaro, my Mother. It will be a short visit but she will understand. It is always nice to see my Mother. She is always nice to me, but i know she is tough.............................
]]>
>>>>>>>>>>>>"Stormy weather in shortville."
"While it has been painful to be short TSLA in the last several months, even here, short interest as a percentage of the float for the stock is near the lowest levels it has been since the company came public. In early 2016, for example, short interest as a percent of float was close to 35% for TSLA, while five years ago it was closer to 50%. It may be stormy, but it could have been a lot stormier."<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Thursday April 6, 2017
7:30 Pm: I just went out and had trouble walking. Right now It is raining at one inch an hour, highest I have seen this year, I, now, am in my nice 70 degree office, I like 68 degrees, so I will survive.G
Pat has worked hard, no romantic thing tonight so we both will go on to different places for a couple of hours. We are still in belief the Giants will do better. I have a book to read so I will be fine if I fast forward in the game and see they are losing. Sports some times makes me disappointed for a short time so as you know I have other passions. TSLA, Tesla..........
No one knows what to do with this stock??? It is up from Trump!!!. on November 14, 2016 Tesla sock was selling at 178.19. I had sold all my stock on November 9, the day after at 190,,,,,,I bought most back at 184 in the next few days so I was good. Now the stock hit 305 yesterday. Believe me I have a lot of experience in trading stocks and I have no idea where TSLA will go from here, but I have said, in 5 years we will know.
Thursday April 6, 2017
Don Rickles died, 90 years old. I know I have to die, but it makes me sad when nyone I liked has died.......
way back in 1964 Joe Toft and I drove to Las Vagas in in anew 1964 Corvette. We headed into a casino at mid night and it was 99 degreegs outside. It was the Stardust maybe, hey it was 1964 and as Joe looked ther was desert a half a way down each street. We waked in on on Rickles by chanece because he was free and we could get food off anywhere. He wa amazing in that I had never heard any one insulting people like he did. Joe and I stuck to the back, but I heard in 1965 Frank Sinatra went into this little lounge and was insulted and loved it. May years later you may know him as the Popatoe
Iyt is raining again hard but we hope we can see some Spring Time. They ar talking about more rin aon and off for another week. We had 2 inches yesterday and may get another inch tonight. I know many people around here who own business are happy to have all theis rainfor the upcoming Harvest, but I have seen enough rain here we need dry weather to produce good fruit SO I am tired of rain............
Like I have said before I have too many things in my mind..........
I have to talk aabout Glenn tonight, he just passed away. I met Glenn the first time I went to Modesto. In early 1973, the first time I remeber being there. Glenn was with betsy, I believe then and they parted soon after that, serriously I am trying to remeber everything. Glenn was talking all the time that evening and I liked him rightaway BUT then said let's go of shooting, I think he said, but definately riht after that Glenn was with Pat's Father Joe who was in the Second world war. Joe seemed to enjoy or escurrion out in his 40 acre vineyard (Joe sold to Gallo. he wa the one to save me when I came here in 1979), so yes Joe liked us going off for a walk. Pat and I were trialing and imediately heard shots by Glenn off the the right ad then to the left, I was a pacificist then after the Vietlam War, especialy after Robert Kennedy died.
I got upset and made a fool of myself because I asked Glen to stop shooting, even though he liked it. Pt and I were not in trouble but I do not like shooting. Pat stood up for me and Joe was just fine and Glenn said Ok, Dave. In other words I spoiled those two guys enjoying shooting...........
Glenn and I became one of my first friends after meeting Pat. He married Lynn and she was really nice. So we saw Glenn and Lynn many times through the 70's. One time in particular made me think of Glenn, He had a personality............
So sometime after maybe, 1974 or 5, I had purchased a 4 wheel drive 1969 International Scout. I made money in sugar and lumber, thus the name Sugar Lump. Glenn said I will show what you can do with a machine like this. He and Lynn came buy for dinner and a nice meal. During the day Glenn took control of the 4 wheel drive and took off with me up a very steep rocky dirt hill. I an guessing the grade was well over 30%, more steep than any San Francisco hills. As we headed up fast near the top where it was steeper the front wheels came off the ground for an instant. I thought we were going to tip backward and die. Glenn was very cool and just let up on the gas and we headed up to the top of the hill. Obviously I never forgot. I will miss Glenn............
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
So the other day Catalina and Jesse and I tasted the 2013 Aglianico. I was told customers like the wine and I said, great. But I asked do they know it is intense? They said no. Here is how I described the wine at our barrel tasting event: "Full bodied, intense acid with high tannins" AND below is what Catalina and Jesse wanted to use:
Pronounced (Al-ee-Anico), this Oh-so-drinkable Italian varietal wine is ethereal, with delicate violet aromas. Its integrated tannins and slight chalkiness show simplicity in the mouth while maintaining the big fruit that we are known for.
We settled on this so they won, mostly:
Pronounced (Al-ee-Anico), this oh-so-drinkable Italian varietal has delicate violet aromas. Its integrated tannins, full body, and slight chalkiness show pleasant acidity while maintaining the big fruit that we are known for.
Aglianico is intense for me and I almost always have a glass or two before dinner...............
8.00:Pm: I must have the Coffaro palate as I have said before. Recently I have tried many other wines, mostly from over the seas and some have been OK and some have been disappointing. I like the middle and finish of our wines and few wines I have tasted recently have a beginning, middle and a finish. As I said earlier, my Aglianico for me is not completed because it is disjointed, I like that intensity, but a glass or two is Great, BUT still my favorite wine I have to sip every night...............Our Block 4 has a balance that is hard to beat and the wine that is complete. It is open every night like the Aglianico, but I like to see what is out there, other winemakers...........
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Dave
One day on a sunny November in 1978, I decided to take a trip to the Wine Country and see what opportunities existed. I was told by a friend to see a real estate broker in the town of Sonoma. The broker said I should go up to Santa Rosa and visit Rich Thomas at the Junior College. He was teaching viticulture and might have some advice. Even though I was really into high end wines I did not know of small vineyards. I thought all vineyards were owned by the wineries. It took me about 30 minutes to drive up to Santa Rosa and another 15 minutes to find out where to find Rich Thomas. I stepped into his office in the early afternoon and he was about to walk out. I convinced him to stay awhile and that 15 or so minutes changed my life. I was told later, the chance of finding Rich in his office without an appointment was almost impossible.
Rich suggested I go up to a small Real Estate office in Healdsburg and think about purchasing a vineyard and selling grapes. I had no idea where Healdsburg was and I had only been to Santa Rosa once before that day. I walked into Mid Town Reality at about 2pm or so and was escorted to a young man named Dave Hastings. Within 30 minutes I was whisked up to this very Vineyard in Dry Creek Valley. We went into a small 1100 square foot house and also down to a basement under the house which had about 18 inches of standing water. I took a quick look in and immediately knew this would be a perfect wine cellar for my 1200 bottles of high end wine. (I already had a pump which was purchased in Fairfax because of the drought in 1976 and 1977. I had used the pump to move soapy water from our washes up to my vegetable garden.)
As we left, Dave Hastings pointed up to the sky, a large flock of hundreds of Starling birds covered the sky over the whole 20 acre vineyard in a black maze, squeaking in joy. It was an unbelievable day.
I became a grape grower for a living. Pat helped by working at a local law firm which paid for our groceries and vineyard costs. The grape sales paid for the debt service. I did all the work, except the actual picking of the grapes. The whole property is about 25 acres and as some of you know there has been a lot of changes since I took possession in March 22, 1979. It took 4 months from that memorable day in November to convince the previous owners and also the long time owner before them who carried the first mortgage, that I was the right person to purchase this amazing property. In March 1979, 93 Taylor Drive in Fairfax California was the lowest house to sell in Marin County in years, $73,000. It took me a month to find another person willing to climb up 120 stairs........After selling the house I had $70,000 to put down and this whole property cost $240,500. I owed $170,500 and no money left in the bank. The rest is history? Oh no, the rest has not been easy but I love what I do. At some point I should talk about the first 15 years here as an amateur winemaker and grower before I started the winery in 1994........
Tuesday March 14, 2017
So on March 22 1979, I had an ace in the whole, Joe Nunes a grower of Ruby Cabernet in Modesto. He sold his grapes to Gallo for about $125 a ton then. He knew how to drive a tractor. At soon to be 35 years old, I had never been on a tractor so Joe, Pat's Father, stepped on a tractor that was left here and drove down a row of grape vines. I watched him and learned how to duplicate what he did, wow he moved the levers on the tractor back and forth and moved through a 7ft x 7ft vineyard. The vines here are still to this day only about 56 inches a part if you include the growth from over 100 years. The tractor that day back in 1979 was 52 inches wide. Now we have a tractor which is only 48 inches wide so we still have to be careful not to knock off arms of the vines.
Catarino told me yesterday he heard about a tractor which is only 36 inches wide. At Harvest this new tractor, if I choose to purchase will help us at harvest time. We need a narrow tractor so we can move through the vineyard without hitting the fruit. Sure we are not driving fast and our other 52 inch wide tractor has an enclosed Cab with air conditioning, if Catarino remembers or even has time to turn on the air...........so a more narrow tractor may not be necessary, but I like spending money.
Thursday March 16, 2017
I finished the preliminary line up for our 2017 Pre-Harvest Futures. I will have a copy to see next week. You will see there will be exclusive Dave's Wine Club wines including Syrah and Mourvedre..........
Yesterday I went off to Costco again. I was just there last week but I decided to see what my eyes see. I went to an optometrist who I have seen for over 20 years but not for 5 years. I went to my eye doctor I respect recently and so I gave his optometrist a chance but I suspect the person there had not as much experience and I am not happy with the new driving glasses I have now. I am one of those who can see specs on my gasses even in small amounts so if the prescription is off slightly it bothers me. I want to have good glasses that are up to date for my eyesight. Pat and I are heading up to Jasper soon, a trip of over 3400 miles in my Tesla Model 90D. This will be my last big adventure in my model s, and fortunately the best ever adventure...............
As some of you know I was in to Elvis and other artists who got started on Sun so take look at a new show...........
http://www.cmt.com/shows/sun-records
Sunday March 19, 2017
I had a customer call the other day and complain about a lot of sediment in the bottom of a bottle of 2013 Aglianico. I must admit I was rude to her and questioned the amount she saw. Last night I did open and look at the bottom of a 2013 Aglianico and there is some tartrates in the bottom of the bottle. Those tartrates will not hurt you and it looks like there may be a tablespoon. Unless a wine is cold stabilized, even red, it will throw some sediment, tartaric crystals. Matt in the last two years did not stabilize our 2013 and 2014 wines. He said he thought they were stable and would not settle anything. To stabilize correctly, the wine has to be chilled down to 24 degrees for several days. With screwcaps, bottles should be stored upright and if some sediment does deposit, it will fall to the bottom of the bottle. The last tablespoon or so can be filtered or just dumped out. I have told Josh, our new cellarmaster to chill our newly racked 2016 wines down to 20 degrees. As most of you know if you put a bottle of liquor in a freezer the wine will not freeze. Alcohol at 15%, most of our wines, will not freeze unless kept at 18 degrees. I want to make sure I do not lose another wine club member.
Tuesday March 21, 2017 First day of Spring
Today we started racking our 2016 wines again. I have been starting to figure out how many cases we will be bottling in July and then 6 months later in January. Like I said I want to make less types of wine so we have more room in our storage building. Soon I will let you know my decision.
This next part is weird but I can't get this out of my mind..........this is my dairy
So a few times I have talked about the past..............
Recently I have been thinking about many of my past times. These two times I forgot about and now all of a sudden, they have popped into my mind, why?..............
One time back in about 1965, I was in a statistics class at City College of San Francisco and this one guy and I would talk back and forth to see who could guess the answer. Statistics was easy for him and I so one time I mentioned: "I thought about this thing that happened to me several years ago and it just popped back in my mind for no reason". He was amazed because things like that didn't happen to him. He said he had trouble even remembering things from the past and certainly not just pop in his mind for no reason. That guy was better than I at statistics. He impressed me and I am sure he went on to great things. I don't know why I am even mentioning this. Is it because it just popped into mind for no reason?
So another thing keeps popping in my mind for no reason? Like I said back in the 70's I lived in a house in Fairfax, California up 120 stairs. I tried to find a way to bypass the stairs by finding a way from up beyond my property on a hill. So I walked up the hill until it became flat and I even looked up the records to see who owned the properties. I found a gate locked. I checked it out and found it was a gate put in by the fire department and I even could get the key. This had to be in 1977 or 1978 just before I had to sell the property. I was determined to get an easement from one or more of the property owners to put in a road and access my property from above. It was a pipe dream but I was pursuing it. One day I saw a guy who owned a property and nice house beyond the fire gate and he invited us for a lunch. His house was easy to drive to because it was on a nice paved street just before you get into town. I don't know why but lately one thing about that day keeps popping in my head, for no reason? He cooked hamburgers and even to this day I never seen anyone cook them perfectly so easily. I have tried and almost always fail! He cooked the hamburgers to medium so easily. Why would I have this keep popping in my head after all these years? Seriously I can be just thinking about something to do with the winery and one or both of these things just pop up.
Wednesday March 22, 2017
So Pat is off to Scottsdale visiting her sister, Janie and Tim, so I can eat what I want. I had fried gizzards last night and fried Razor Clams tonight.
I went off to the dentist today so that is fine, I love dentists, they make me enjoy food, now I need another crown...........
When I got home Ken and I put up a new projector. Here is a review of it:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/viewsonic-ls820-projector-review.htm
It is an amazing projector that sits only 18 inches from the 10 foot screen and only 10 inches below. It took us well over an hour to get it to look OK. Our 10 foot wide screen on the wall at the end of our winery does not sit perfectly against he wall, it has wrinkles in it. I didn't notice it as much with our other projector which sits 20 feet away above the screen. This new Viewsonic is very sensitive. By moving it one inch can completely through it off since it is so close to the screen. We finally got it set up to our liking and the color is amazing even with a lot of lights on. Our other projector lamp had to be replaced so I figured it was time for a new one. The lamp in the new one is rated at 15,000 hours so it should be good for over 10 years.............
Birds, I love spring and I hope to see Dri and Brad soon, I miss them. I also miss Duane, it was nice to see him. It is more important to talk about birds. Dri loves birds!! Most of you, I guess do not see nests around your home? I do every year so it is huge, Assume, Great..............little birds outside, it is raining so they are trying to keep dry and wait for their mother who is off trying to find food. Every year birds come back here in March and try to survive. Obviously the Mother remembers her last trip here about a year ago. I go outside now and hear their nice cries for food. It was raining so I hope their Mother is successful. Dri is there something I can put outside for them to enjoy?.................
7:30 Pm: It is still light, I love this time of year, Spring is by far my favorite time of year...........I just went out side for my espresso and such. I see my cats are out watching the new birds. I see the new mother has brought them out to a spot I can't see, interesting.........I hope she keeps her new ones safe. My cats are not interested in food tonight so they are having a good time.
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Dave
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
a lot has happened so I want o go back to what I wrote several days ago
Sunday February 5, 2017
so yes she is 95, my Mother Vivien
Monday February 13, 2017
So Trump is getting me upset, but my stocks keep going up but who knows...........
Why is Tesla worth as much as Ford??????????? The price of Tesla in the last few weeks has gone up by 40%, so do I sell, yes I did, big mistake.............I sold all my Tesla the day after Trump was elected and then bought half back at 182. Tesla closed at 280 today so why did I sell half, oh well, I am still ahead. Don't ever worry about losing money when you could???, most stock people would agree with that. The Stock Market is an auction, it is a bidding crazy time when socks can go up by 10% in one day......oh I could go on, but I guess we should go back to wine..........
Yes this is a winemakers diary, fine, but i have other interests
I am thinking about flying again.........I have been on 4 in 17 years and I hated all. I have to convince my self that it is OK to be not in control. I like to be in control at all times,.......So I hate planes and airports.......OK I should relax and read my Kindle at airports while seeing delays.
so I have booked a cruise to Amalfi for the third time. I cancelled the last two because fear of flying. I decided on Business Class for sure so I see the prices have come down a little, but still $8000 for the two of us, and we could get a couch seat for under $1000. Please don't let me have a kid in back of me dig into my back!!!! And I have been on only 4 flights in 17years........
So there are two possibilities.........Regent which will cover everything including Business flights and a hotel the day before for us to settle down. Including all decent wine and drinks and nice restaurants and nice free excursions OR
We could do Norwegian, for less, but how much and how much trouble. I went over to Europe when I was 29 years old and only took a Back Pack, it had to weight 50 pounds. 1972 was different here, I hope Europe has not changed as much.
I only want to go to Amalfi and Venice but these cruises could take me to my other heritage. My Father was born in Sicily and my Grandfather was all Greek.
OK, Regent pays for everything on a 10 day cruise for $32,000, I have a large suite as usual. And Norwegian would be about $22,000 with a larger suite but we have heard with less quality of food, but they have 12 restaurants, we will not be bored like on Princess.............
Thursday February 16, 2017
Today is a better day now after going in for my Root Canal. I was only fearing rain because I would have to replace my shorts with long pants...........oh no. I wore shorts and no socks with my usual Birkenstocks, I really don't think they care what people wear when coming in for a root canal.........So the rain was predicted all morning as I took off but maybe I was up North and the storm had already come in and past but just 10 miles South I ran into many rain showers. So when I got down South 30 miles the rain was almost over there. I was 15 minutes early and waited for a small shower to let up and walked in at 9:07 Am.
The receptionist was energetic and helpful. I said to her, I have an appointment for 10 minutes, right. Yes I try get peoples attention......and she was nice and said it should be about 1 hour..............Seriously you have to hire this guy for a root canal, I was out in one hour.
OK Billy, I have tried before to talk about him but It would take days if I could remember all.
Billy lived down below me in a rental. I sure did not know that then in 1971. I bought this small 1000 square foot house up 120 stairs in Fairfax California. As I have said before, up 120 stairs is nice because I had no one around me for 1000 feet to the right or the left and someone down 60 stairs to the right of my trip up 120 stairs. I must admit I have heard about several houses up stairs in Fairfax but none as much as I. SSSO I purchased the house at $14,000 and sold it for $73,000 in 1979. It was the lowest sold in Marin County that year...............
Billy saw me walking up those stairs in 1971. I was 28 then and I had strength at 6 foot and a half inch and now yesterday My doctor said I was 5 foot 11. I have to check that out......I digress
Billy came up the stairs one day and started talking. He said he saw me come in a few weeks before and take my time to come up my 120 uneven stairs, every stair was an adventure. Billy was interesting because then he said you are doing better climbing up the stairs. He brought up Hash. I had just started trying grass in 1969, two years earlier, Hash was different, strong. But we were young and talked a lot. I told him I wanted to make this 1000 square foot house better. He suggested a deck........long story. I hope to continue if I survive my Banff trip, this May, 3500 miles, but in a Model S...............
Friday February 17, 2017
My diary from the past, not necessary about wine:
1972 after I left my job at a great bank.............Billy suggested a deck and I was instructed to climb up my 120 stairs to deliver 90 pound sacks of Concrete mix. I had retired to my house then and was investing in stocks. I had two phone lines, then there was no internet. I would talk to a broker or two in the morning. Billy would come up in the afternoon or evening. He proposed a deck off my house, it turned out amazing, probably at least 1200 square feet. He found some 4x4s for a good price......seriously a deck with only 4x4s underneath. I had many courses in engineering and architecture so I know more than him, I supposed so he had these many 4x4s delivered up my hill of course off to the side of these 120 stairs........seriously this is a long story, of course for my diary.........
There are many things on my mind as usual, most important, we are going to make less wines............more tomorrow
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
Dave
]]>Wednesday February 1, 2017
My mother, Vivien will be home at her favorite place and celebrate her birthday. I am going down the day before to be with her and Pat. Lynda, my sister will be there on February 5, my Mother's 95 year old birthday.
an selling more Tesla, even though I hope to buy much more if the Market goes down. I am upset with what has happened with Elon, has he gone off to the other side, think about it.........Elon is the owner of Tesla, which you knew is an obsession with me...........OK there are others, Nadal, is coming back and may wine The french............I digress..............
So Elon wants to help Trump. Trump is happy. Elon, with headquarters IN California AND SOON TO BE ON THE east coast wants to create jobs for the United States..............I digress
I sold 1400 Sharesss of Tesla on November 09 and I got $189 and got $264,600 so I have some money. Today Tesla closed at 250. I could have made a lot more money. I did buy back 740 shares and sold 150 so far and have made $20;000. I still have 550 and will buy back more if I am right about Trump, being out of control............................
Friday February 3, 2017
so it is set up for Pat and i to see my Mother, Vivien. She will be 95 on Sunday, February 5. She was my most important person in my life until I moved out in 1978. I was 29 years old then and decided my girl friends did not want to meet up at my Mothers house.......Long story.........
So I went off to Fairfax up 120 stairs and got away from all around me. I was into the Beatles but then picked up a passion for the Stones..............
So I have decided to avoid my sister again, this time on Sunday, my Mother's 95. Lynda is very upset with Vivien, our Mother is not accepting Lynda the way she did before........this is my diary so if you are not interested I understand but I like to document things for all who are interested in the future.
Lynda and her husband, Richard are going down to see my Mother Sunday and meet up at a restaurant with a few of my Mothers friends. Lynda is always constantly questioning my Mother about everything so Vivien is fed up and does not like to be treated as a child, that is what I hear from my Mother and I have experienced similar things with Lynda. I know: Too much information?
I sold a lot of Amazon before earnings announcements yesterday so I have bought more back at lower prices. Remember I bought Amazon stock, AMZN, at $35.60, a price worth then for 100 shares at $ 3660 in October 2008 when the Market was crashing. I just bought more at 801.50 in the extended trading after the earnings were announced. It was 840 at one time yesterday before the market closed and now it is 810 on close today thus down big from yesterday. I love Amazon so I will buy more if it goes down from here...................I have always held at least 100 shares of Amazon so that 100 shares at 35.60 then $3,560 is now worth $81,000 today. I was right about one thing...........
Saturday February 4, 2017
My Mother will be 95 tomorrow..........Today, I went down to see my Mother in Millbrae, A trip of about 220 miles with stops. I saw 8 Tesla's on the way and none on the way back to Sonoma County............Smooth drive even though it was raining most of the time...........
Vivien looked fine, especially at 95 years old. She dominated the conversation, she said a lot, she said interesting things, I hope I am anywhere near her capacity in 20 years.
I have to say I am rooting for Atlanta, not that Alabama is politically my favorite state, but I heard the New England side tolerates Trump?
So I am happy........... most of the time...............TSLA is up big........... so should I sell........hard decision...............Maybe I should get a twitter account and tweet?.......no
I am watching the first press briefing tonight. It could be interesting. I loved watching Nixon when I was young because he was so intelligent but made other mistakes. He was brilliant at news conferences.......so I always watched the first briefing to the press in a new president Sean Spicer
Make your choice...........
]]>Happy Holidays!
Of course we have been busy preparing for the holidays and the barrels have been cooling down to 55 degrees. It is hard to taste hearty red wines at these temps, but someone has to. We did buy the bottling line and we figure that since we don't need a mobile bottling line now which would cost $6000 a year, the additional cost is more like 20 cents a bottle rather than the 40 cents I mentioned earlier.
We are having a New Years eve party that will start after 9pm so if any of my customers in the area would like to come please contact us at 707-433-9715 for info.
January 1, 1999
We had a rousing party as an introduction to 1999. About 30-40 of our local loyal friends and fans showed up to help us celebrate and brought many great still and sparkling wines. I provided every wine I have made commercially since 1994. Unfortunately, we did not have enough of you here to consume more than a third to half a bottle of any one wine. The party went on until about 3:30 a.m., and amazingly I woke up at 10:30 with a clear head and ready to begin the new year's work.
Brendan had been with us at the party, stayed overnight, and appeared to be clear-headed also, so I put him to work on his last official day here this season topping off barrels of wine we had blended on December 9th. At this time of the year, the winery has cooled down into the high 50's and I feel really uneasy if I do not top off the wines at least every three weeks. In the springtime as the winery warms up into the 60's, I feel I should top off the barrels every two weeks. I know I have talked about topping off before as the wines are still fermenting, but at this stage - after going through malolactic - the wines have become stable. What I like to do is put a bung into the barrel very tightly, which actually creates a vacuum, until topping is desired. Some wineries actually turn their barrels sideways - at say the 2 o'clock position - and they feel that the vacuum created by the tight bung preserves the wine for months. Their theory on positioning the barrels at 2 o'clock is that the bung won't leak and thus the vacuum remains intact. Since wine evaporates as much as one-half bottle per barrel per week, I feel uncomfortable if the barrel is down more than one bottle at any time. Thus, my 2- to 3-week limit. I've heard of some wineries going as long as two months and there are theories that misting within the winery will create less evaporation out of the barrel. But no matter what misting you use, your barrels will be down several bottles in that period of time. Now, one barrel holds 300 bottles, so that is a small percentage, but I am trying to preserve as much fruit as possible, and I think the oxyidation that occurs from the evaporation is detrimental to the fruit level.
Brendan left us for the season to begin hopefully his last semester at Cal Poly. He has promised to come back and help us during the next harvest, as well as coming up from time to time for special events, to help blend and top barrels, etc. That is, if he has enough time left over after going to school and writing his 6-part series on a year in making wine at a small winery (gee, guess which winery is featured?). The first article appeared in the current issue of WineX magazine (the one with Tori Amos - Dec-Jan'99 - on the cover) and it's called "So Ya Wanna Be a Winemaker." Look for it on the newsstands now as I think it's been out for a while.
]]>Today I re-wrote the ORDER FORM to include a Neighbors' Zin and reluctantly had to raise our prices on the ESTATE wines. I still feel the zin fruit bought from Neighbors' is of good quality--especially the Teldeschi, but I do agree the wines taste different. I am confident that the ultimate blend will be a very good wine.
Tuesday and Wednesday, November 24,25 1998
Brendan and I spent most of both days making tests adding So2 and topping barrels. The results from the Lab were very satisfying. Almost all the barrels have gone through Malo-Lactic fermentation and have virtually no sugar left from the primary fermentation. I decided to turn off the heat.--I was keeping the temp at 68 degrees to encourage the completion of fermentation. The alcohols are around 14% and the ph's around 3.6. I am more happy with the
numbers this year than last.
Friday and Saturday, November 27,28 1998
We were open for tasting unofficially for both days. Many customers picked up 1997 futures and we also had about 75 people each day for tasting out of the barrel. I used about 10 barrels for tasting and then topped them off with last years wine. With the cooling down of the winery and the many tasters I used over a case of wine to top off. These tastings do cost money!! The Teldeschi zin was showing very well.
We had a very distressing call on Friday. A customer had received a whole unopened case of 1997 Carignan on Wednesday and opened a bottle on Thanksgiving. He told us the wine tasted like water and was very light in color. Michael Watts my best friend was coming up for a visit the next day so I had him pick up the case in Marin. I called up the bottling company and was told it could not happen. Mike dropped off the wine on Saturday and we noticed that the customer opened two bottles and both were almost all water. We expected to see a gradual increase in color as we looked at the rest of the bottles in the case, but to our outrage ALL the remaining 10 bottles were the same. We must now try to figure out who else may have watered down wine. You cannot imagine how much this bothers me. I am a fanatic about making sure all my wines are consistent. That is why I refuse to bottle in two lots. The bottling truck has a long hose connecting to our tank of wine. The hose is connected on the other end to there many stainless steel lines within the truck.---It is a maze. At the beginning of each day the company uses water to sterilize all the lines. They drain the water and then force the rest out with the first wine of the day. Then they start filling bottles and run three cases through to make sure it is the new wine--we are handed back, in two buckets, this first wine I feel responsible for not tasting the wine at that point, but we are so busy and we are not encouraged to help at the truck. After all we assume they know their equipment.
Back in July before I suspected some irregularities at the end of the second day, I had two small runs of 75 cases each. I wanted to be sure I got as much of the pure wine as possible. So I asked if there was a better way of clearing the lines instead of pushing the last wine with the next wine and I was told we could use air to clear the last wine--the Estate Cuvee. At this point after bottling all our other wines--Zin, Cab, Neighbors', Pet Sirah and Carignane I decided to label the first three cases of the Aca Modot Cab. Also the first three cases of Michael Watts Zinfandel run of 75 cases. At the end we were told all the wine was out of the lines. Mike found at least another two cases in the lines. WE WERE NOT HELPED OUT. As a matter of fact during the whole two days the bottling crew were very apathetic. I let it slide--after all there are so many things to take care of. That evening, Mike and I opened up a bottle from each of our first two marked cases. I was shocked to find out that the bottle from the case marked #1 tasted more like Estate Cuvee than Aca Modot and the second bottle from #2 was not all Aca Modot. Mike found the same results in his--at first more like Aca Modot. I just wonder what the first cases of the other wines taste like, since we did not use air--but the last wine. How many cases does it take to get the pure wine?
There is at least another case of watered down Carignane out there--the first run on the second day. What about the first few cases of Zinfandel?--thefirst run on the first day. We will try to figure out who might of gotten those cases.
This is a nightmare for me. I will never use this company again. I will probably never use another bottling line unless they can prove to me that they have their act together ---I doubt that is possible!!
Does anyone have a suggestion on what my recourse is?
]]>This was the most trying day of the year!: I went to a Raiders' game. Kate and I started at 9 am and arrived at the Oakland Coliseum at 10:50. No traffic to speak of. The game was to start at 1:05 so I was happy that we had plenty of time. We started into the parking lot to be greeted with a jam up. It took 15 min to get into the gate. I should have realized that something was wrong, but had faith that the ticket people would not let anyone in if the lot was full. It was immediately apparent that there was no parking places to be had. That does not mean that there were not places empty, but those parking places were taken up by tables or barbecues. I even asked one guy if he would move his empty table over a few feet and he laughed at me. It was bizarre. It took us 45 min to just get out of the lot. I was kindly told to try the other parking lot because they had plenty of places. I was dumb enough to try it. Another 30 minutes were wasted. By the time we found a parking pace in yet another parking lot, the time showed 12:25 pm. THE RAIDERS DID WIN! but it took another hour to get out of the parking lot and we arrived home at 7:15 pm. There is much more--but let's just say I don't need to have a day off like that again this year.
Monday, November 16, 1998
Ray showed up to start replacing the bladder inside the press and Brendan labeled a few more cases of wine (we still have over 500 cases remaining to be labeled). Pat and I entertained and were entertained by a couple of good customers.
Wednesday, November 18, 1998
Today we have a guest post from Everett Bandman who visited on Monday and tasted barrel samples of our 1998 wines. Here are his notes.
The Zins
Teldeschi - light in color, herbal, wet hay notes in the nose, elegant up front strawberry flavors, light finish3rd Block Zins - tasted three different barrels (one labeled north, one south, one simply 3rd block), all were similar in style and fruit character but varied in color and aromatic intensity. The north and south barrels were richer (the south barrel being the darkest) and exhibited classic Coffaro Vineyard black and blueberry fruit even at this early stage.
The Wire Zin - Nice purple color and gook dry creek zin character with little tannin. The brightest tasting fruit at this stage. Given that these were budded over only 4 years ago, I think there is a great future ahead for these vines. Similar in character to the 3rd block, but combined with youthful exuberance though perhaps not as complex. Has big shoes to fill as it has to replace the Davis clone (which in my opinion was the core of the Blockbuster 97 Zin) that was removed in the construction of Lake Coffaro.
Lane Zin - My least favorite (as it was last year) of the zins in the winery. Hard to judge the color since it had only been in barrel a short time and was still somewhat cloudy, but it seemed more pink than purple at the edges. Simple grapey and plummy fruit showing little "dry creek character". Last year this wine was awkward to say the least and I had doubts that Dave could resurrect it, but as the Neighbor's Cuvee shows, when combined with the Neighbors Cabs this can produce an interesting counterpoint to the Estate Cuvee. I suspect that many California wine consumers expect a degree of firmness and drying tannins in the finish of their wines after drinking young California wines for so many years. The Neighbor's cuvee satisfies those tastes and expectations. It is a wine for "structure lovers" as opposed to "fruit lovers" like myself. It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see the Neighbor's cuvee outlast Dave's estate bottlings and to satisfy those wine drinkers who want to wait around for the end of the race to compare the "mature" wines and not the ones we are drinking now.
The Syrahs
Dark purple, tree bark, herbal, pepper, hints of cherry, big mouth feel, drying tannic finish. Will certainly add structure to any wine it is blended into.
We also went over to Lambert Bridge, to sample a barrel of syrah that Dave was thinking of purchasing. That sample was just as dark but lower in tannins than the Syrah Dave had made from purchased grapes.
The Cabs
Bottom cab - purple, spicy anise, low tannin, typical young coffaro cab. The essence of estate cuvee.
Aca Modot - richer than the bottom cab but not as open at this point, also it is harder with more tannin. A little dull on the palate and could use more acidity to highlight the fruit.
Cab Franc/Malbec blend - weedy, tobacco, herbal. Similar to last years Cab franc but more restrained. This wine will clearly add the "bordeaux-like" quality to Aca Modot.
The Carignane - very deep purple color, red fruits and minerals dominate the wine in the mouth. Much more intense than previous vintages. A little "stinky" from fermentation odors right now. The 98 vintage has concentrated the Coffaro Carignane to the point where I suspect there will be those who love it and those who think it is "over the top" (in my opinion similar to comments on the 97 Zin!).
The Petite Sirah or Pbot - very dark purple, violets and spices in the nose and in the mouth. A classic example of Coffaro Petite Sirah (or whatever it is). Full bodied mild to medium tannins that add structure without overpowering the fruit.
And now for some philosophizing <grin>We already have had at least 100 people come in to taste our 1998 barrel samples. Every one of them has preferred my estate Zinfandel over the Teldeschi and Lane Zins. This has caused me to re-evaluate dropping my estate classification on the Zinfandel. In the next few days, I will try to estimate which barrels will go into each of our six or seven red wines. Hopefully, I will post a note on Friday giving my decision. ]]>The Zinfandel Decision -
What to do, what to do, what to do? A short crop of zin, carignane, and petite sirah and burgeoning futures sales has left Dave with the least flexibility he has ever had. In previous years Dave has blended in small amounts of carignane, cabernet, and petite sirah to round out and add complexity to the estate zin. Whether he can do that again is not clear at this point. In my mind the carignane is a much better choice than the syrah for fleshing out the zin. It would add the missing components (color, minerals, red fruits). The syrah could add the color, but at the cost of adding tannin to the zinfandel. Would that significantly effect the mouthfeel and structure? Also in Dave's mind, the Teldelshi and Lane zins would also add complexity to the zinfandel and allow him to produce as much zin as had anticipated (>850 cases). But neither of those zins, have the "classic coffaro zin qualities" I have grown to love over the years and will only dilute the "essence" of Coffaro Zinfandel. Further complicating these decisions is the fact that a significant portion of Dave's zinfandel grapes are sold to Nalle and to Lambert Bridge at prices less than Dave has paid to purchase (much lower quality) zinfandel!! Can Dave afford to continue providing zinfandel to other producers? Will they "understand" if he should decide that his growing customer base (many of whom purchase the wine as futures before the grapes are "born") should be the rightful recipients of Coffaro zinfandel? What to do? What to do? What to do?
A proposal for 98 (and perhaps the future too).
In 97 Dave added the Neighbor's Cuvee. By all accounts it has been a success and as discussed above a counterpoint to the estate cuvee. I suggest that Dave introduce this year the Neighbor's Zinfandel. A blend of purchased grapes (75% of which must be zinfandel) molded by the Coffaro hand. A wine distinct from the Coffaro Estate Zin both in fruit complexity and in structure. I suspect with Dave's unique palate and ability to blend, this wine would contrast nicely with the homegrown Zin and develop a following just like the Neighbor's Cuvee. Dave has told me he doesn't want to make two zinfandels, but I think it makes a lot of sense and I wouldn't be surprised that some would prefer the added complexity that can be obtained from purchased grapes and the magic of Dave Coffaro. This would give Dave and Pat a Zinfandel (in addition to the Estate Cuvee and the Neighbor's Cuvee) to pour, taste, and sell at barrel tasting and passport, and still preserve the unique Coffaro Estate Zinfandel.
* * *
Sunday, November 8, 1998
The Raiders lost. An aberration?
(A COLLABORATION OF DAVE AND BRENDAN)
Some of you may be wondering what has happened to the press. So here goes, but first we'll have to tell you a little about our trip to SF on Friday. Matt Kramer gave a very interesting presentation at the Wine Spectator Wine Experience. The topic of his speech was "Zinfandel Somewhereness" and he discussed the different styles of Zinfandel produced in California's major Zin regions. Matt Kramer's chosen examples were Ridge Geyserville (Alexander Valley), Limerick Lane (Russian River), Amador Foothills Winery (Amador County) and us from Dry Creek. (You can read a little about the symposium on the Wine Spectator's web site.) After the event, we had a stellar lunch at Hawthorne Lane.
On the way back from San Francisco, Dave stopped off at a truck/tire repair shop in Santa Rosa. As you might have guessed, the epoxy patch that he tried did not adhere enough to the rubber. I (Dave) have since found out that the glue they use on rubber causes a chemical reaction in order to seal the patches on. The guy I met at the shop was extremely helpful. After taking many minutes to explain how to repair the inner tube for the press, he handed me three patches, the all important glue and a buffing wheel - all for three dollars. Since Brendan and I had bought three patches in Healdsburg without glue for $25, I thought this was quite a value. The method that was recommended was to pyramid the patches with a large patch on the bottom and then progressively smaller patches on top for reinforcement. This was the opposite of what we were doing previously where we started with the smallest patches on the bottom. I was encouraged and anxious to try out the method the next morning.
I got up early Saturday morning and started preparing to apply the patches. I knew that Brendan was out celebrating the night before and thus I was very understanding when he didn't get to the winery until 11:00. I knew I could put on the patches myself but I figured that I would wait for Brendan because he has had the most experience with the patches and the hole is in a very difficult spot. Once he arrived, he went straight to work and had the new patches on in less than an hour. We then went to work setting up to press our Cabernet Sauvignon. By 3:00 we were ready to load the 5 tons of grapes into the press and by 5:00 we were ready to start the press and fill up the bladder. IT HELD!!!
We pressed for the next couple of hours and by 7:00 we were both exhausted so we called it a day. All we have left to press now is the last five bins that are done fermenting.
Monday, November 9, 1998
Today we prepared for pressing on Tuesday. After expecting to get only enough grapes to do 2,800 cases, we ended up getting enough fruit to make about 3,100 cases. This caught us somewhat off guard and we were forced to scramble a little bit for more barrels. Luckily Julia at Lambert Bridge had some barrels to spare so we picked up three older, neutral barrels and two new Czech Republic barrels whose flavors we both liked.
Tuesday, November 10, 1998
Today we pressed off the last of the Simpson Cab, the last of the Jones Cab, and three other bins of Cabernet/Zin blends. WE ARE DONE. There are no more fermenting grapes and all of the wine is in barrels. The one and only notable exception to this is our Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc that is still in the field waiting to rot appropriately.
Wednesday/Thursday, November 11/12, 1998
The last two days have been pretty similar We are mainly cleaning up and tying up loose ends. There are pumps to clean, hoses to sterilize, the press to clean, barrels to organize and stack, bottles to label, floors to clean and random tools to organize. Nothing very exciting, just time consuming and - unfortunately - necessary.
]]>A lot has happened since I last posted. We found another case of Carignane that was watered down. 4 bottles seemed to be darker, but were still watery. We suspect another case is out there. Good news is that the bottling line is willing to compensate us for all our losses. NOW how much is my reputation worth? Another rejection we have had: Late Harvest Sauv Blanc---4 Corks have popped. So as I write on Dec 12th I am drinking my first bottle of this nectar in months. It is 6% alc. and 31% sugar and extremely high acid . How can it be completely stable unless it was sterile filtered and stripped!! This is the most intense wine I have ever had!! We have got back at least 8 cases from our distributor so we are selling it for $21 per half bottle. Please keep it in the refrig. This wine will go for 100 years.
We are considering an automatic bottling line! We have heard many wineries do not want to put out the big capital expense. Barrels are important packaging is important. I want to preserve my fruit, so I only use 20% new oak, we use less expensive composite corks and we use the same bottle for everything. Does that mean I can afford and should buy my own bottling line? Here are the facts: I have had trouble with mobile bottling lines. I have small lots--can I produce wine that is consistent if I use a mobile bottling line? They do not have a drain to clear out the last wine because of sterile filtering. I do not filter. Do they understand winemaking? They make us run at least 4 cases of each new wine through to make sure that the wine is pure. That is not acceptable to me. What does this mean?: We are considering bottling a 3 pack of our Pinot Noir experiment--25 case lots. Could that mean that we would lose 16% of the wine OR mix 4 cases with the next lot? The down side? A small line which could produce about 80 cases an hour would cost $55,000. A mobile bottler can do over 200 cases an hour. It is interesting though that with our own line we should be able to cut out four workers. We figure we could still do 700 to 900 cases a day. We could bottle any time from July 1 to August 15. I have decided to produce between 3200 and 3700 cases. Brendan has commited to me for as many seasons as I want. He hopes to graduate from Cal Poly next year and I plan to give him more responsibility each year. We can easily handle that amount of cases and produce the best quality wine. Our own bottling line would be perfect for us in order to produce the best quality. Can we afford it. I am still borrowing money, so I will have to finance. At 10% interest I estimate that the line would cost me 40 cents a bottle over 5 years. I hope my customers will understand when I raise my prices to compensate.
We blended all our wines on the 9th and 10th of December. I changed the percentages of the wines we are now selling on the order form. The other wines we are making are as follows: Dry Sauv Blanc is 100% varietal; Late harvest Sauv Blanc is 100% varietal and is sold out. We will bottle 250 cases of Petite Sirah at 75% Ps, 14% cab (5% is Aca Modot Cab), 11% Carignan and it is sold out. We will bottle 250 cases of Carignan at 75% Carignan, 10% zin, 11% cab and 4% Barbera. We will also make a 3 pack of the Pinot experiment with full history to sell for $75.
]]>What can I say! The Raiders won again. I know most of you have learned to dislike AL DAVIS and the Raiders. I understand Al Davis, but don't know him. Don't hate me for loving the Raiders--I never liked their intimidation's. My favorite players were Stabler and Bilitnekoff.
Brendan took off Friday afternoon to go to Tahoe and I was left with punching down the Cabs. I am sore--Where is
Brendan when I need him? I am not sure I explained Punching Down before. It requires brute strength or some finesse if you want to cheat!! When the fermentations start, the CAP or grape skins float to the top. This cap becomes so thick (6 to 18 inches--someone could walk on the top of the skins during the first days of fermentation). If you make a small hole with your hand or put the Punch Down device at an angle and work slowly, you can make the punching down easier. The ultimate idea is to break up the Cap so that all the skins get exposed to the juice at least twice a day--very hard work.
Tuesday, November 3, 1998
We have a stuck fermentation still! Brendan's suggestion to restart the Lane Zin did not work. In each of the last 3 years I have had a fermentation that has stopped. That means there is still sugar left in the wine. We want virtually no sugar left. The grapes start fermenting at about 24%--we aim for less than .1 % sugar or less than one part in 100. Our wines to some of you may seem to have sugar left in them because of natural fruit flavor. We try to preserve fruit by pressing early, going directly into barrel. I have now started to add one of the fermenters back into a newly started zin cab blend from Teldeschi's second crop. We are slowly adding the stuck wine to the hot new fermentation. We are pressing most of our Cabs tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 4, 1998
(By Brendan)
First of all I would like to vindicate myself. When Dave said in yesterday's posting that "...Brendan's suggestion to restart the Lane Zin did not work..." what he meant to say was "Thanks to Brendan's brilliant suggestion and skillful action, 2 of the 3 bins that had stuck fermentations went dry and we were able to press them without having to blend them with Cabernet." We did have to blend 1 of the 3 bins with Cab, but I still think that that's pretty darn good.
Today we primarily kept busy pressing wine. We pressed 2 tons of Lane Zinfandel (the Zin that was Un-Stuck), 2 Tons of Teldeschi Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1 Ton of a blend of Teldeschi Cab/Simpson Cab. I find it interesting how different some of the wines smell as they are being pressed. I can tell in an instant whether we are pressing off our Zin or our Cabernet just by aromas that come out of the press.
On a more negative side, Dave an I are faced with an arch nemesis (much like Batman and Robin against the Riddler). Our evil foe is a recurring leak in the press. We just managed to get the final grapes of the day pressed before our previous patch-job failed. We still have 10 tons of grapes to press in the next couple of days and we REALLY need the press.
Thursday, November 5, 1998
(By Brendan)
@#$%!!!!!!
Grumble, grumble, grumble!!!!!!!! I'm not sure there are any words in the English language to truly describe how today went (I'm told that there might be a few words in Yiddish). Our press is still broken. The aggravating thing is that we are only two days away from having all of our grapes pressed and in barrel. We now have 10 tons of grapes that are done fermenting and ready to go. It's so frustrating.
Dave and I spent most of the day trying to re-patch the gaping hole in our press. Unfortunately, it is a large hole and it is on the underside of the bladder and inside the press. Take it from me, it is not easily accessible. After having 3 of my patch job fail after hours of work, I was really not happy and let Dave have a crack at it. Dave dedicated the next couple of hours to the project and in the end also had his 3 patches fail in quick succession. Now Dave was not happy and he had a splitting headache (I wonder why?). The worst part was that aside from personal aggravation over not being able to solve the problem, it was compounded by the fact that we need the press NOW. It's a good thing that no one else was around today because we would not have been the best hosts.
Dave and I finally gave up around 3:00 and were forced to figure out damage control for the next couple of days. We are having a new bladder shipped from New Jersey and are having it installed on Monday. Until then, we will have to pick up some Dry Ice in Santa Rosa and use it to protect the now-finished wine that is waiting to be pressed. What a crappy day!
11:15 PM Brendan is long gone and I have not given up. I have not heard back from Ray who will hopefully put the new bladder in the press. As a last resort, I have gone to epoxy. I don't have much hope--but what do I have to lose! I have tried to fill the hole with epoxy and reapply the failed patches. Brendan and I are going down to San Francisco to hear Matt Kramer speak at the Wine Spectator's Wine Experience, and I will check out the press when I get home.
]]>The Raiders win the fourth in a row--how mundane.
As some of you have grasped:--most of what we do in the wine industry is very mundane. In Microsoft Word thesaurus, Mundane can be described with two adj.: normal (ordinary-everyday) or earthly (terrestrial-worldly). In winemaking, most of what we do is very boring or rudimentary UNLESS you enjoy or have a passion for it.
Most of my time spent within two days after filling barrels is consumed with a topping ritual. Brendan and I have decided to do something that most wineries do not :- go straight into barrels after pressing. Most wineries do not (I am suspecting) because it creates a lot of Mundane work. I have used this method since I was an amateur, because I didn't want to use stainless steel tanks (they are expensive and I don't like them as storage vessels--another subject). After the wine is moved from one medium to another, I want as little oxidation (Air) on it as possible. As I have gotten bigger (now 2800 cases) this method has become very Mundane or time consuming. To preserve the fruit in my wines (little oxidation/Air) I like to press just before the wines go dry. That leaves between .5% and 2% sugar left in the barrels. At bottling I would like virtually no sugar left in the wine-- less than .1% (only the natural fruit and of course alcohol). After going into the barrels we must top off. (By storing in barrels, there is a slow oxidation --evaporation) that occurs -- about one-half bottle per barrel per week.) The more often we top off, the more fruit (less air), I believe we will have. One of the problems with going directly into the barrel is that the wine is still fermenting. Some of the wine in the barrels will expand or overflow as the sugar goes from 2 or .5% to virtually zero. I must continually go out to the winery and tend to these little overflows and, as the fermentation calms down, top off. Half of today was spent on retopping, with 20 gals, our 49 barrels already filled. We filled 9 new barrels Saturday and will fill 26 tomorrow. We will have 85 red wine barrels filled tomorrow or 2100 cases. But with evaporation and blending over the next 9 months until bottling, we will lose approximately 10%.
Monday, October 26, 1998 (47 low; 86 high)
Brendan and I are zombies. We filled 26 barrels of wine today. We also received two+ tons of Teldeschi Cab. Their Cab grapes made up 50% of the 1997 Neighbors' Cuvee. The quality of the pressed wine today was stunning. It was so much more interesting than the Zin. To be fair to Zin---it is so sharp, tart, yeasty, and spicy when it is first pressed that it is not enjoyable. But in a month or so, with its fruit, it will be the most complex and interesting wine. The wines today are concentrated black bombshells. We pressed the Carignan first! Incredible! By far the most complete wine at this stage. As some of you know, I'm a big fan of Carignan. I can tell that this will be the best we have made so far. The Aca Modot Cab was next and appears to have the darkest color and by far the most tannin. We finished with the Petite Sirah--also very dark like the last two. At this point, these three Estate varietals appear to even have more potential than the '97s. TIME WILL TELL. It is 10:35 pm and I must get to bed and get some sleep. Tomorrow I have my biggest test in the last three weeks--I am going to Santa Rosa and COSTCO-- my favorite place to spend money--can I resist all the temptations?
Tuesday, October 27, 1998 ( 44 low; 64 high)
I am constantly changing my estimates of the percentages for the wines we will sell in 1998. As I press and put the wines in barrel, new possibilities occur to me. My favorite time will be in the next 3 months as customers and Brendan and I taste the different barrels in order to decide what the final blends will be in February. We hope you are one of those who will give us your input. In the meantime, please consider my changes on the order form in the BUY section (updated today) as only a guess. I think the Barbera in the Aca Cab is necessary because of the low acid in the Cab, but taste will tell. The Syrah in the Zin is necessary because at this time the wine may need some middle mouth feel.
Wednesday, October 28 1998 (low 50; high 73)
This is one of those kaleidoscope days. Brendan and I had no idea where the wheel of unpredictability would take us. Everyday within the past seven weeks of harvest has been unpredictable, but today was one of the most. We didn�t know what was going to hit and when. Ultimately, we pressed 2 tons of a most intense Carignan and 5 tons of Neighbors� Cabernet. The initial tests on the Cabernet averaged over 24 brix, which is what we are aiming for. We are planning to press the Lane Zinfandel and some more of our Petite Sirah tomorrow, a total of 5 additional tons. We were elated to hear that Ryan is back from his harvesting excursions up north to bring in our 4 plus tons of Cabernet tomorrow from the sandy loam (most of which goes into the Estate Cuvee). This will conclude our harvest for this season!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ----- with the exception of hoped for select picking for the late harvest sauvignon blanc, which Brendan and I will have to do ourselves.
There were so many twists and turns today that it would be impossible to relate them all. The rain that was predicted did not occur. The rain predicted for tomorrow does not look likely either. The Cabernet from the Jones� vineyard which we had expected next week was delivered today. WineX came to take photos for Brendan�s pending article. (Brendan is also a budding journalist. If you get a chance, check out the latest issue of WineX--the wine magazine geared to Generation X�ers--where you�ll find an entertaining article written by Brendan about his wine-related excursions on California�s Central Coast.) Many customers came by to inquire about our harvest and pick up wine. Etc., etc., etc. All these distractions were just part of the winemaking process this day.
In case you�re wondering why you haven�t heard from Brendan recently, he�s still here. It�s just that he�s now worked 17 days in a row without a break and he�s about to collapse. We both need a vacation and since it looks like the end is in sight, I�ve agreed to let Brendan take a long 3-day weekend at a WineX extravaganza in Lake Tahoe. He has been working hard and deserves a break. I have been working hard and think I deserve a break too, but someonehas to be here. After all, just because the harvest is in doesn�t mean the work is over. In some respects, it�s just beginning!
Thursday, October 29 1998 (low 47;
Since after today, we will only have late harvest sauvignon blanc and maybe a few vines of second crop to pick, I�ve decided to do an hour-by-hour account of what we will be doing today.
Yesterday evening at 5:30, I got a call from Steve Ryan to inform me that his crew would be here this morning at 7:00 a.m. My computer estimate for this year is for 4.5 tons of Cabernet from our sandy loam to be harvested. This estimate was arrived at after dealing with these grapes since 1983 and realizing this year would be somewhat lower-yielding than normal. At 6:55, the first workers arrived and smiling Caterino arrived a couple minutes before 7:00 a.m. Since the sandy loam Cabernet is about 1200 feet away from the winery, we must have two vehicles to harvest from. After one is filled up and driven up to the winery, the other one can be filled up. Since Ryan�s tractor is not here, I only have my tractor and my new Ranger to work with. The 4-wheel drive Ranger is heavy enough to accommodate a bin extending beyond the end of the tailgate. It was loaded with 930 lbs. of Cabernet. The tractor was connected to a trailer that holds 3 bins and on the first load, those 3 bins averaged about 850 lbs. per container. At 9:00 a.m., we are still estimating a total of 4.5 tons.
After the start of the picking, Brendan and I checked all the sugar readings on the 5 tons of fermenting grapes we were hoping to press today. As I�ve mentioned before, the Lane Zinfandel had a lot of rot and strange smells. Even though I added 100 parts per million SO2 to kill some of the bacteria, it apparently still wasn�t enough. The sugar reading on one of the one-ton fermenters was 5% yesterday morning and 5% again this morning (A STUCK FERMENTATION). We�ve decided not to press the 3 one-ton fermenters of Lane Zinfandel today. The two tons of floral, spicy Petite Sirah that was harvested last week is still active at 1 or 2 percent and we will press that today. There are several methods that winemakers use to re-start a stuck fermentation. Most wineries do not use the only fool-proof method; that is, to start fermenting fresh grapes, make sure the fermentation is very active, and then slowly add over a period of 24 hours, the stuck wine. Since varietals are harvested at different times of the season, this method usually involves mixing two varietals together. Since we make many blends, including Zinfandel at the legal limit of 75 percent, this method is perfect for us. BUT Brendan is still going to school to learn. He suggested, with some reluctance from me, to try to re-start the Lane Zin today and hopefully press tomorrow morning (Brendan is hoping to leave tomorrow for Lake Tahoe). Since I definitely want to keep some of the Lane Zin separate to see what the quality is like, I agreed to a different method. This second method involves making a starter of twice the normal yeast recommended and slowly adding the stuck fermentation to the yeast. We decided to start a 30-gallon container with five gallons water and five gallons of wine and 3 lbs. of nutrients. Then we added the yeast to this 2-1/2% sugar (5% of the stuck wine and water, making 2-1/2%). Since I think it was better to add some of our Cabernet harvested yesterday, we also added about 5 gallons of Cabernet juice at 22% sugar to the approximately 500 gallons of Lane Zin. As I am writing this at 9:00 a.m., we have now added approximately 7 gallons more of the stuck Lane Zin. The sugar reading now is around 4%. In the next 2 to 3 hours, we will continue to add some more until our 30-gallon container is almost full. Then we will add the 30 gallons back to the 500 gallons of the stuck Lane Zinfandel. Now the 500 gallons of course may continue to stay stuck because we�re only adding 30 gallons to it. Again, the only fool proof method is to have a 1000 gallon fermentation going of new, fresh grapes and add 500 gallons of the stuck fermentation to it. But, of course, this would take another week and I would not have pure Lane Zin anymore.
In the next hour we received another 1.5 tons of cab and checked the sugars from the 6 tons of neighbors� cab we stemmed yesterday. The Teldeschi was already fermenting and was down to about 23 brix. My guess is that the initial brix readings were about 23.5. The Simpson cab came in at 24.4 and the Jones close to 24. I added yeast to all 6 fermenters.
In the mean time Brendan emptied the barrels we had filled with water the night before (to soak up.) He also emptied the press of the Carignan from yesterday.
At 10 am Brendan started doing PH readings on all our present fermentations. And I started figuring out our sales tax for the winery�due today. Nothing like waiting till the last minute!
At 11 am the rest of the grapes came in. 5.05 tons a great surprise and we are through! BUT Brendan�s and my work has barely started.
After seeing the results of the PH tests I asked Brendan to do an experiment. The ph on the Simpson Cab was 3.85�low acid (ph is confusing, because it acts opposite. A ph of 3 is much more acidic than a ph of 4). We would like a reading of between 3.5 and 3.6. Since we are planning to use our Zin/Barbera blend for acid, instead of Tartaric Acid in past years, I asked Brendan to add some Zin/Barbera blend to the Simpson Cab until it reaches 3.6. That will help us estimate if we have enough Zin /Barbera (two barrels) to adjust the low acid wines. Ryan arrived just when I was getting the results from Brendan. He was in a festive mood since he had paid the crew and was near the end of harvest. I appeased him for a half an hour as he drank some beer. Brendan�s results were disappointing: it took 2 oz. Of Zin/Barbera to lower the ph of 2 oz of The Simpson Cab to 3.6. That means that if we wanted to raise the acid in the Simpson Cab to a 3.6 ph reading, we would use both our Zin/Barbera barrels. Now I see why most wineries use tartaric. As I was appeasing Ryan ( he was amusing at times), I instructed Brendan to check our ph readings again on our wines already in the barrel. I concluded that we had enough acid in some of our other wines that we should only add a little tartaric to the Cab. After adding the tartaric, we then added the Stuck fermentation starter to the Lane Zin.
I am writing this at 9 pm---A lot has happened since 12 noon and I will try to relate this day the best I can.
After getting rid of Ryan and making the 10 crew members happy with a 30 pack of Budweiser (they complained when I give them Ale), Brendan and I started pressing the P Bot - as I call it - or the spicy floral clone of Petite Sirah from our sandy loam. After an hour and a half we moved the press up to it�s highest point of pressure to extract the last bit of wine. This can take hrs, but can yield as much as a case an hour more wine (5 oz per minute very slow---turn your faucet and try to slow it down to 5 oz per minute).
At about 1:30 we started stemming our 5 tons of Cab Bottom from the sandy loam. Sugar readings were consistently in the mid 23�s. About the same as the Cabs stemmed yesterday. At about 4 pm, I heard a hissing noise from the press. I suspected what was wrong: yes�the bladder had sprung a leak. I knew we had to try to repair it this evening. We finished stemming at 4:30 and the biggest surprise of the day occurred:-- Brendan matter of factly asked if he could go over to the Salvation Army to purchase a Holloween costume. I understood immediately that this poor guy has not had a day off for over three weeks and has not had time to shop. After all, he is 23. He said he would be back is 45 min. and was. He said he would do all the clean up, but I informed him that we had to try to repair the press.
While Brendan was gone, I decided to check the stuck fermentations again and obtain the sugar reading for today�also to punch down the newly started Cab. When Brendan returned at 5:15, he had to empty the press and fill it with air to see what was wrong. The problem was determined to be what we thought: A leak in the rubber inner tube. We then spent about an hr repairing and will try it out tomorrow. At about 6pm., the cleanup started. We decided we would do most of it starting tomorrow at 7 am. We still had to rearrange in order to put the stemmed grapes from today inside and wash down some to be able to walk around without sticking to the floor from the grapes and juice that had flailed all over the place. At about 7pm we bid good-bye until tomorrow.
I am signing off at 10:55. At 6:30Am I was ready to go. I had a tuna fish sandwich at 7:30 am that took 15 min.�a dinner break that included a bottle of Carignan from 7:15 till 8:30 and then back to the winery to tend to things and on to the diary at 9 until now. All in all, a very satisfying typical day in the life of a winemaker.
Friday, October 30 1998
Today I have decided to end the "Harvest" Diary, because the harvest is nearly over. I hope to still make entries almost every day, at least until December. The weather will only be updated -- per extremes. I welcome any visitors on site or in person to post notes. I am encouraging BB, my web adviser to set up a button for your input on my wines. I promise to take all comments with respect and hope you will make me a better winemaker with your suggestions.
Here is the first guest diary:
By Mark Horvatich and Doug Powers
We arrived at the winery for our scheduled bull session and tasting with Dave at 2:30 after lunch in Napa at Bistro Jeanty (good food, slow service, and an excellent bottle of �86 Seppelt Sparkling Shiraz brought by Mark). When we arrived, Dave said he had already been out dining and drinking. . . . which is the reason for the guest authors!
Here�s our impressions of the �98s Dave has in barrel. It should be noted that none of what we tasted has been blended, and some wine had not yet completed fermentation.
Based on the barrels we tasted, our overall impression was that Dave has some very successful �98s and should make some outstanding wines, albeit in more limited quantities than the more copious �97s. The various cabernet barrels seemed more intense than the �97s at a similar stage. The cabernet franc barrels were awesome! The carignane this year seems even more berry-fruited than the past few years, and for those of you who have been privileged enough to try Dave�s pre-bonded �93 Carignane, is reminiscent of that wine without as much alcohol. The bottom petite sirah (which is NOT petite but more likely tempranillo) is even better than either the �96 or �97 at a similar stage. We can�t make statements about the zin because no one, including Dave, knows what will go in the �98 zin (plus the old sweet Davis clone zin is now a retention pond). However, the zin we did taste was quite good and a bit reminiscent of the �96 at a similar stage.
And then there�s the pinot noir. . . . where do we start? The whole-berry (carbonic maceration) barrel was just as you would expect: it tasted like nouveau Beaujolais. The cold-soak barrel was excellent, and it tasted like pinot! The hot-fermentation barrel was the most intense, but it reminded us a bit of zinfandel. This isn�t surprising because it was made in the same way Dave makes all his other wines, and it�s also not surprising that of the three pinot barrels, Dave likes this one the best.
]]>Sunday, October 18, 1998 (37 low, 87 high)
Since the Raiders were not playing, I had time to greet a few people who picked up wine. Pat was proud of me--I gave them a tour of what we harvested in the last few days, but did not give them tasting of wines they could not buy, because they were sold out. I hope they still enjoyed the mini tour. I did see some Football, but mostly concentrated on what the percentages of the different varietals would be this year. As I mentioned on Wednesday, we have a Cabernet Franc from the Jones Vineyard that is very promising. I've decided that would complement my Zin this year. I also think the Syrah would blend very well with the Zin. That would mean that I would have to drop the estate classification on my Zin. Does anyone care? After all Most wineries, including Rafanelli, are not estate. Since we only harvested 2 tons of PS and 3 plus tons of Carignan, we are practically already sold out of those two wines
Monday, October 19, 1998 (40 low, 92 high)
(By Brendan)
The winery looks more official today. There was a two day period at the end of last week where we had pressed off all of the grapes in the winery and it looked sadly empty. Now the 9 tons that we brought in on Saturday are all fermenting and the winery looks (and smells) like we're working again. This is an interesting time for people to visit (if they catch us between jobs) because we have many stages of the winemaking process going on simultaneously.
We had a couple of small groups in the winery today who got the chance to stick their arms in a fermenting bin, taste recently pressed wine and try our new Sauvignon Blanc. This is something that is tough to find for wine tours. Most wineries let you taste their bottled wines but very few let you experience the process hands-on (literally). I think this gives people a much greater understanding of the wines we make and why we do the things we do.
Tuesday, October 20, 1998 (47 low, 94 high)
(By Brendan)
Well, the weather is starting to pick up again although it might be a case of too-little-too-late. It is nice to see a good 47 degree swing between the highs and the lows again but most of our grapes have either been picked at this point or are starting to change colors and go into hibernation. Oh well, I guess better late than never.
Along with the weather Dave and I are celebrating the return of the fruit flies, who much like the sparrows to San Juan Capistrano or the Monarch butterflies symbolize the coming and going of the seasons. We were beginning to get a little worried because the fruit flies were late this year (along with everything else) and, as everyone knows, it takes great fruit flies to make great wine.
Aside from our flying friends, there is another interesting thing happening in the winery right now. As most of you have already read ,we took in 9 tons of fruit last Saturday. In order for our pickers to do this, they had to start very early in the morning (7 a.m. +/-) and finish late in the afternoon (4-5 p.m. +/-). This caused the fruit that they picked to have a wide variety of temperatures. The Carignane that was picked first in the morning came in at a chilly 45 degrees, the Petite Sirah on the knoll came in at 65 degrees, the Bordeaux blend grapes (Malbec, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc) came in at 72 degrees and the Aca Modot Cabernet from the knoll came in at 82 degrees. This variance in temperature has greatly effected the fermentations.
After 2 days in the fermentation bins, the Carignane and the Petite Sirah have not even started while the Aca Cabernet and the Bordeaux blend is already half way done. This is not necessarily good or bad. Dave normally likes to get the grapes in warm whenever possible because he thinks it works better with our estate fruit. On the flip side, I know many winemakers that will not pick their grape past noon because they want the grapes colder so that the fermentations will start slower. It should be interesting to see how these different fermentation temperatures (and therefore speed) changes the nuances of the wine (if at all).
Wednesday, October 21, 1998 (44 low, 92 high)
I am tired, I want to write this diary, I must write the diary---the must is in. Yes I'm still trying--MUST refers to the mess of berries, juice and skins we start to ferment after harvesting. It was another day of constantly thinking, adjusting, (does that mean reevaluating?). ::::: What should we pick next? Will the pickers show up? Will Ryan come back tomorrow? What is the sugar (Brix)? Does Julia want the first block zin? Should we crush for her? Can we get a few gals of Sauv Blanc bulk from her? Etc.!, Etc.! Should I pay bills???? Do I have time to pay bills? Will I get some sleep tonight?
Caterino, that suave vineyard foreman, showed up at noon with his usual friendly smile. (Remember he covers Ryan's tracks and keeps me from getting too nervous). I said "Great, You're here to pick!" "No, I need more bins!! I'm picking for you at Lane's Zin" Now I was hoping they were at Lane's, but also hoped they would be ready to pick for my Estate vineyard also. But I was also very happy that meant there were probably more grapes than I thought at Lane's. It was another hour and a half before the pickers showed up to pick for me and not until 7pm that I got delivery from Ryan of those grapes.
We harvested from 1:45 till 5:45 the rest of our Carignan and Petite Sirah from the bottom. We stemmed the Carignan by 5:30, but will do the Petite Sirah and Lane's Zin tomorrow.
I'm fading---I'll have to finish tomorrow.
Thursday, October 22 1998 (morning low 40; 82 high)
The sugar levels on the Carignan after soaking overnight were between 24.5 and 25. The flavors are dark blackberry--the most intense fruit that we have harvested this year. The Lane Zin was another matter. The flavors just aren't there yet. There were a lot of raisins so we're hoping by the morning the intensity will be evident. The sugar level initially seemed to be between 21 and 22 percent, although after only an hour, the sugars swelled up to over 23 percent.
Brendan and I were so busy sorting the Lane Zin�over six hours of sorting out bunches we did not want from the 3 tons harvested that we had no time to prepare for pressing tomorrow. The pressing of our Cabernet, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Franc, Carignan, etc., from last week will have to be Saturday and Sunday. I informed Brendan that I may have to take a break for the Raider game on Sunday, but I know he can handle it alone if necessary.
Friday, October 23 1998 (morning low 33; 74 high)
The Lane Zin sugar levels swelled to over 24% and created an incredible smell that I am trying to like and also identify as something I have smelled many times. After hours, I finally think it must be cheese! Maybe blue cheese or cheddar. I sure hope that is good!
Several people came in to pick up wine and were extremely impressed with the Carignan, which just started fermenting. We also began our first barrel tastings today. As many of you know, it is the most fun time of year for me. I really enjoy the input from EVERYONE who participates in these tastings, which sometimes result in unexpected smells and tastes. With wines only one to two weeks in the barrel, you always get a whiff of yeast which, to most of us, is hard to take. But as this is my fifth year of tasting wines this early, I'm actually enjoying the experience and still learning from it. So far this year, I've been starting tasters off with our old vine Zin and then tasting the 4-year-old trellised Zin. These are totally different wines. The Zin on the trellis appears to be higher in alcohol and will blend well with the more balanced old vine. Next is a taste of Syrah, which I suggest could add a middle to the blend. Also, I mention that most of the Syrah will probably go into the Neighbors' Cuvee. I think the most interesting experience this year from our barrels will be the three Pinot Noir experiments. We start off with the carbonic which is more fruity and light, and then go to the cold soak which has more body and color, and finally to the hot fermentation, which to me is much more concentrated, darker and far better flavors. I just can't wait for you Pinot Noir lovers to come in and tell me which one is really the best. We don't have any Petite Sirah, Cabernet or Carignan in the barrels yet, so I've been ending the tasting with our 2/3 Zin-1/3 Barbera blend, which is very acidic and as I've explained before, I'm hoping to use this blend to raise the acid levels in some of our wines.
We have decided that tomorrow we will press the Cab franc from both Jones and Coffaro vineyards, some Zin and Syrah - and then whatever else is ready on Monday.
Saturday, October 24 1998 (low; high)
It is 7 am as I write and it is pouring rain. It appears that over a half an inch has come down so far, which should get into the soils and create havoc for any Zinfandel that may still be hanging. We were hoping get two tons of Teldeschi Cabernet today and our five tons of Cabernet for our Estate Cuvee on Tuesday. This first rain will not hurt the Cabernet grapes because of their tough skins, but could affect the sugar levels for a short time. I am waiting for Brendan to arrive, and with our overhang outside the winery building, we should have no trouble pressing as we planned today.
We pressed our Cabernet Franc, the Malbec blend for Aca Modot, and the Cabernet Franc from the Jones Vineyard. We also pressed a Zin blend. In all, 3-1/2 tons and 9+ barrels were filled.
The skies turned sunny by noon and the total rain fall was just a little over 1 inch. Harvesting of the Teldeschi Cabernet was delayed until Monday, and Steve Ryan is still hopefully picking Cabernet for us on Tuesday. He and his crew are responsible for harvesting several vineyards and since virtually all grapes are ready to be picked, everyone wants his services at the same time. It's a hard juggling act for all vineyard managers.
]]>Sunday, October 11, 1998 (Low 39, High 80)
I had to suffer through an extremely boring Raider football game, while Pat had the pleasure of greeting 7 customers to pick up wine. The agony of listening to the game on AM radio (humming and whistling and fading in and out) because of the blackout, was further aggravated by 16 punts by the Raiders, a NFL record. They did not get one first down the whole second half except for one long pass play on their last play that went for a touchdown that won the game 7 to 6. Needless to say Kate and I were giving each other many high five's on that play.
The weather remains OK, but we could use some hotter days. A cooling trend which could bring showers is forecast for tomorrow. We are still hoping to pick Friday or Saturday.
Monday, October 12, 1998 (Low 40, High 78)
(By Brendan)
Dave and I figure that about 45% of our work is prep, 45% is clean-up and the remaining 10% is the actual winemaking. Today we worked on the first 45% to prepare for our third major pressing tomorrow. Our press schedule will consist of the First Fermentation Pinot Noir (our normal hot fermentation), the 4-year-old trellised Zinfandel, the Simpson Syrah, and maybe a 50/50 blend of our Knoll Zin and our Barbera (if it finishes fermenting by tomorrow). That should definitely keep us busy.
Today's prep mainly consisted of a couple of basic steps that through repetition Dave and I are getting very good at. We started with testing the individual bins for residual sugar and temperature to see if they had finished fermentation. We are looking for a hydrometer reading of about -1.5 which means that the fermentation has gone dry. You can also tell if the fermentation is finished by looking at the Cap (i.e. the layer of skins at the top of the bin). As fermentation slows down, the Cap gets thinner and softer as the grape skins sink back into the wine.
Our next big decision was which barrels to select for the pressed juice. We have already selected about 20% new oak (a blend of mainly American with a couple of French barrels) for the Zin so most of the barrels we picked were neutral (over 4 years old--no oak flavor left). We also decided that we wanted to compare the wine from the 4-year-old trellised zin that we did in the 1-ton fermenter vs. the 1/2-ton fermenter so therefore chose 2, 1-year-old Demptos barrels for a side-by-side comparison. We also decided to try 1 new World Cooperage American Oak barrel for the Simpson Syrah (Dave has decided to lean more towards an Australian-style Syrah/Shiraz instead of a French Rhone style).
Our final major project was to pull down the 13 barrels we will be using and fill them with water to make sure they are sealing properly. We then quickly organized the winery and arranged the barrels that we had already filled with wine towards the back of the winery to keep them out of our way. All in all a pretty relaxing, straight-forward day.
(Brief Note- Dave is very excited because he just bought a new professional espresso maker which he had installed in the winery. I guess working late into the night won't be a problem anymore!)
Tuesday, October 13 1998 (low 52 degrees; high 81)
Light showers were predicted for today with cooling temperatures. As usual, the prediction was completely wrong. As farmer-winemakers, we have to take these weather predictions with a grain of salt. But then again, they may be right. This was one of those days when we had many decisions to make and I usually rely on Brendan for his opinion and input, but today he wasn't quite with it. Brendan is only 23, and for some reason, he has insomnia. He complained about it last year, too, but I think he's been burning the candle at both ends lately. Today, after making numerous minor mistakes such as dropping things and looking like a zombie, he admitted he had been writing an article for Wine-X magazine and had been up until midnight. As Pat had reminded me, I had been up to midnight, also. I guess the younger generation cannot handle these long hours, though because I actually was feeling fine - except for the fact that I was getting a little impatient with Brendan - I did not realize, after all, he is still learning.
We needed to make some decisions about when next to harvest, so I talked with Steve Ryan about his schedule and he was open for harvesting tomorrow and Thursday afternoons and probably Saturday. Since I am one of the only wineries I know of that will accept grapes after noon time, I guess that explains why I've been delegated to the afternoons for harvesting. As I've said before, I don't mind harvesting grapes "hot" and as we all know, the weather has not been too hot lately anyway, so there is little need for concern.
We started the day pressing our Pinot "hot fermentation" which actually tasted like wine, instead of like some Pinots I've had which in my opinion are "light weight." Then we went to the Zinfandel on the wire (which again, to remind everyone, is only 4 years old). The color was much better than the old vine Zinfandel. Then we pressed a Merlot, Syrah, Zinfandel fermentation and that also had good color. Lastly, we pressed the Syrah from the Simpson vineyard and we were extremely impressed with the dark extraction.
Later, I sent Brendan out to do sugar samples on the Aca Modot Cabernet, Petite Sirah knoll and Carignan second block. The Aca Modot came in at 24.2 and we were undecided on harvesting. I would like to have between 24.0 and 24.5, but in the past years, the actual sugar at harvest has come in lower than the samples. The Carignan (French spelling) has been a problem in the past. It definitely comes in lower than the sample at harvest. I instructed Brendan to go out and pick the largest, unripe bunches. Since the sugar reading came in at 23.1, and I want over 24 at harvest, we would like to wait another week. The Petite Sirah on the knoll came in at 23.4 and I would like 24 brix. So we have decided to wait a few more days before harvesting further from our vineyard. We do expect to get some Cabernet Franc from a neighboring vineyard and some more Syrah from the Simpson vineyard tomorrow, as well.
Wednesday, October 14 1998 (low 52 degrees; high 75)
We received one ton of Cabernet Franc grapes from Joann and Phil Jones, whose vineyard is just up the road from us, right past John Teldeschi's vineyard. The quality looks excellent. We will have a further report tomorrow. Today was cool but clear. Brendan and I finished the pressing of our cold soak Pinot and carbonic maceration. Even though the carbonic was still about 7 percent residual (to make sure it does go dry I did finally add RC 212 a fast acting yeast), the color extraction at this stage looks equal to the cold soak. The temperature on the carbonic reached 80 degrees, while the temperature on the cold soak and hot fermentations reached close to 90. The pressing of the Barbera/Zin mix resulted in concentrated dark colors and flavors. It looks like we will be receiving some Syrah and Zinfandel tomorrow.
There have been a few questions to me thru Email regarding color extraction and dry ice. I added the dry ice directly to the must and grapes with good success, but be careful to add it slowly to a liquid such as the sauv blanc---it will bubble and may get violent. There are no sanitary problems--it is a gas.
Extended maceration does not give you more color--just the opposite. The color may go back into the grapes. I have found that the amount of color is determined by the temperature of fermentation and is set pretty much before 5% residual is left. As the temperature and sugar goes down, the color may leech back into the grapes. Some say you may get more flavor by extended maceration or even tannins, but I have not found that in my vineyard---I get less fruit. Therefore I like to press just before the wine goes dry. So far I have found that with both Teldeschi and my vineyard, the color does seem lighter this year than usual. Remember that doesn't necessarily mean less flavor. Look at Pinot and Zinfandel--they are usually light-colored wines and have plenty of flavor.
Thursday, October 15 1998 (low 50 degrees; high 76)
This was one of of those trying days. NO ONE UNDERSTOOD ME! Have you had one of those days? Actually I must admit Brendan did a credible job and Caterino did all right also. I just think I was very cranky (some would say: my usual self). It wasn't until about 1 PM when I understand what was wrong. I didn't have a clue of what to do today. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow or the next day either. That is not actually true. I do know what I want to do, but not in what order. OR, I do know what order, but do not know whether I should do it. Do you know what I mean? I am hoping some of you go through this some days?
The morning started with an animated review by Pat and I of our problem with a Timeshare we got hooked into down in Mexico. We are trying to get out of it. After numerous other distractions I need not mention, I realized I did not know whether Ryan's crew would show up today. After all they were to show up yesterday and did not. To my great surprise at 12:30 I heard their rumbling cars in our yard. Now I expected maybe 4 or 5 pickers, but was greeted with 12. WHAT SHOULD I DO? I knew there was some unripe Syrah grapes 10 days ago still left over at Simpson's. But what sugar and how much? From our vineyard, I knew there was some Zin on the wire left. But what sugar and how much? I knew Doug Nalle left some grapes in his section that were not acceptable to him. But what sugar and how much? Finally, I knew there were many vines that we did not pick two weeks ago because they were not ready. But what sugar and how much? I felt sick. My mind went blank. All of a sudden it became clear. I had to put these guys to work picking all this stuff, or I would never know. It wasn't organized, but I sent Caterino over to Simpson's to pick the Syrah. Caterino is one of those savvy workers who understands me (not many do--including Pat sometimes). I trusted him with my new Ranger. BUT he left me with 8 workers who spoke mainly Spanish. I know-- why haven't I learned to speak the language? Needless to say we had a lot of trouble communicating until Caterino came back with the Syrah. By that time we had a bin of Zin from the wire. I realized the Zin would be impossible to check for sugar until we sorted, but the Syrah being consistent from bunch to bunch would be easy to determine from a small sample. To my delight, the sample turned out to be 25+ Brix. I decided to run the Zin from the wire through first and see what it was. We sorted out about 25% of the unripe bunches and still only came out with about 22 %. After running through the Syrah, we have so far about 1100 lbs of 50% Syrah and 50% Zin at 23+ sugar. By tomorrow morning, after swell up, we should have about 24--just where we want to be. Caterino and others continued to pick until dusk, and we will crush the remainder tomorrow. Overall, we should have about 1 ton and a quarter of Zin and 500 lbs of Syrah.
Friday, October 16 1998 (low 52 degrees; high 81)
(By Brendan)
This was one of those transition days. It was warmer so it looks like we have no problem in getting the grapes in---the problem is always WHEN! Simpson called to let us know his Cab was ready. I sampled the Lane vineyard and the Zin came in at 23.2 which is about a 1.5 increase over the last sample I took on the 7th. This is good, but we'd like the sugar to go up another point before we want to pick. A sample of Simpson Cab came in at 23.8.
I spent most of the day finishing up work from the previous day. The last grapes to be picked on Thursday were the left-over Zin from Nalle and some extra Zin that we had left to ripen for an extra week or two. Unfortunately, a lot of these grapes were from vines that are heavily virused and therefore still not ripe. I was forced to do a very severe hand selection. Up until now I have been picking out between 10-20% of our Zin that was below our standards. Today I was picking out 50%+ in order to get the quality level we want. It's always very depressing when you throw away more fruit than you keep but, ultimately, it makes better wine. I've been talking with many other winemakers around Sonoma, Napa and San Luis Obispo who have all recounted to me the same problems of inconsistent fruit that we are having. I am just glad we are in a position to hand-select our grapes so that we can minimize (and hopefully eliminate) the impact on our overall quality.
Right now Dave and I are bracing for tomorrow. We are planning to take in about 1/3 of our entire year's estate crop (about 12 tons). We are starting at about 7 a.m. and plan to be done ????.......... We will be bringing in most of our Carignane, our Aca Modot Cabernet Sauvignon from the Knoll, and the Petite Sirah from the Knoll. We were planning to also pick the last of the Zin from our Block 1 for Lambert Bridge but we got a late call from Winemaker Julia saying that she would not be able to take it until next week. Dave and I may actually sleep tomorrow!
Saturday, October 17 1998 (low 39; high 85)
(By Pat Coffaro)
Everyone else is too busy to write, so it�s my turn to post. Today was without question the most hectic day of this harvest season, if not our entire lives!
At 7:00 a.m. the picking crew arrived and immediately set out for the vineyard, with Dave leading the way to try to figure out what to pick first. He decided to start them on the Carignane in the second block, then rushed back to the winery to work with Brendan setting up for the crush that was soon to begin. The stats on the harvested grapes for today were as follows (notes from Dave): We harvested only a little over 3 tons of Carignane which was down 30% from last year�s Carignane harvest. It came in around 23.5 brix, a little lower than what we wanted but the flavors were fabulous. Next we harvested approximately 2 tons of Petite Sirah from the Knoll, down 40% from last year but over 24 brix, which is exactly what we wanted. Finally, we harvested the Aca Modot area (also on the Knoll) and took in 2/3 ton Cabernet Franc/Malbec mixture and 2.9 tons of Cabernet. That will give us about 220 cases of Aca Modot bottled wine.
While Dave was tending to the business of the day, I was trying my best to socialize with my sister and her husband who came in on Friday evening for an overnight visit and also getting prepared to take Susie to her 11:00 a.m. soccer game in Cloverdale. Additionally, we had received calls from over 20 people in the past week who wanted to come pick up their futures today, and not knowing that we would be in full-tilt harvest, we agreed. So I enlisted my brother-in-law Tim to be in charge of the pick-ups while I went to the soccer game with my sister (that at least gave us some time to chat and catch up on our lives while cheering on Susie�s team).
When we arrived back at the homestead about 12:30, Tim quickly filled me in on what had transpired while we were gone, and Dave was loading bins on his pickup and trailer. I asked him how things were going, and he replied "don�t ask." With a little more pressing, I got him to tell me that he had been running back and forth from the vineyard to the winery, trying to make sure the crew were picking grapes in the right areas and also fork lifting the bins of harvested grapes over to the winery and overseeing the sorting and crushing there.
In the meantime, also arriving on the scene were Dave�s friend Michael Watts (who has his own label and makes a little wine from our vineyard as well) to pick grapes for his own production this year and also some neighbors who needed some help with crushing grapes they had just picked too.
My job in the afternoon after my sister and brother-in-law left was to parcel out the �97 wine futures to those who arrived for that reason, and "guard" passers-by from going over to the winery for tasting - since the winery was now set up for crushing, not tasting. I must admit that I wasn't too successful with my guarding job because every time someone stopped by to pick up wine, I got involved with them in going over their orders, etc., and then someone else would show up while I was inside rather than out in the yard and these new visitors would make their way over to the winery before I could tell them we were closed. Although numerous people found their way over to the winery, not many stayed for long because of the unbelievably sticky mess and the snorts and snarls emanating from Dave, who was still running back and forth to oversee the picking in the vineyard and the crushing in the winery and had little patience for being hospitable.
To put the finishing touch on the "day from hell," a tour bus with 25 visitors pulled into our yard at 3:45 and they immediately disembarked from the bus before I could give them the bad news about being closed for tasting. Their leader, Bill, said he had talked to Dave and set up this tour a few weeks ago - so what was I to do? I meekly approached Dave in the winery and he said "I�ll go out and tell them I�m really sorry but we�re just too busy." Well, the next thing I see is all 25 people out on our back lawn standing around a makeshift bar (an overturned garbage can topped by a dishwasher rack full of clean glasses and two wine bottles - they brought their own David Coffaro Estate Cuvee to taste!). So, you can see why I was delegated to guard duties and not Dave! All in all, a totally exhausting but very successful day, with over 9 tons brought in and crushed. I'm sure I forgot lots of stuff - just ask Dave, Brendan, Michael Watts or Steve Ryan - I'm sure they all have many more stories of the trials and tribulations of harvesting/making wine on this particular Saturday!
]]>Sunday, October 4 1998 High 87, low 45
I talked to Steve Ryan last night, and we have made a decision to harvest his Pinot Noir on Tuesday. As of this morning, this appears to be a good decision as there was no fog and clear blue skies promise warmer weather today.
I plan on using three different methods to ferment the Pinot.
The first will be the same method I use on all my fermentations that is - stem, then ferment hot with the fastest-acting yeast and punch down many times a day. After approximately five days, the wine should be ready to press. I will press it very hard to extract as much flavor as possible. From what I've heard from many winemakers, this is not the traditional way of making Pinot Noir. In other words, no one I know recommends this first method. But since this is the method I use for all my other wines, I would like to see for myself why it doesn't work for Pinot.
The second method will be completely different. I plan to not stem the grapes at all. They will go into a half ton bin, just like the first fermentation, but the bunches will remain on the stems and be pretty much whole berry. Of course, just the activity of cutting the bunches off the vines and throwing them from the pickers' tubs into the harvesting bins will create cracks in the skins, and juice will naturally increase as the days go on. I will add no yeast and let this fermentation develop on its own. I am not sure what temperature will be achieved, but I will not try to control the temperature in any way. Instead of vigorously punching down with our stainless steel punch-down tool, we will exert only slight pressure to create more juice. I am not sure when I will press this wine. There are different theories on when to press red wine. Wineries can press anywhere from 10 percent sugar to completely dry and even after extended maceration , we don't have the spell checker installed on this program!), which involves leaving the wine on the skins for several days after it ferments down to zero percent sugar. This is a method I do not like at all, but I'm planning to see what happens during my fermentation and then will make a decision to press somewhere between five and one percent. The pressing will be slow and easy.
For the third method, I plan on stemming and then cold-soaking the skins and juice at 40 degrees for several days. At that time, a highly recommended Pinot Noir yeast will be added and fermentation will start slowly as the wine warms up. This should still create temperatures in the high 80's or 90's at full activity. I plan to punch down twice a day (figuratively speaking, that is--young, strong assistant winemakers make much better "punchers") and then press slowly, but to medium pressure. I'm told this is the method used by most who make high quality Pinot.
These wines will be put into three separate - but exactly the same - new French oak barrels and then the fun will begin as the wine develops and we get to taste the experiments in progress.
Monday, October 5 1998 (54 low; 90!!! high - finally, a warming trend?)
This was my day to pay my bills and savor another Raider win. I also had to create more debt by going to Costco. I talked to Shon today (the assistant at Limerick Lane from 93-95 and now at de Lorimier) and he gave me some hints on the Pinot. Now Shon is even MORE opinionated than I am. I take in everything he says. He has heard from all the great winemakers out there!! He suggests that I use DRY ICE for my second method of fermenting Pinot. I have heard of dry ice for most of my life. I have even seen it in action and I know it gives off a gas(Co2)!?, some of you know I flunked out of Cal in 1961--mainly because of an F in Chemistry). I did not know until I picked it up today that the gas is at 109 degrees below zero. I do not want to touch it. The box I picked up weighs 600+ pounds. The gas will make it dissolve in about three weeks. In the meantime, I should be able to slowly add pellets to keep the bin of uncrushed grapes at 60 to 70 degrees and protected from air while it ferments. I need to calculate how much money I have into this experiment. I have spent $9000 on a chiller to keep the third method of grapes at 40 degrees for 5 days. I will spend $3000 for the grapes. I have spent $275 for the dry ice. I will spend $2000 on the 3 barrels. I have not even started the processing and I have already spent $14,275. If I can make 90 cases, I would already have $14 per bottle into the wine.
Tuesday, October 6 1998 (46 low; 86 high)
The weather gods were apparently on our side again today as we were greeted with another morning of clear skies. Today, Brendan and I were joined by Tom, a futures customer, who traveled from the Bay Area to help us with our wine making efforts. Since there were a lot of impromptu decisions to be made today, and Brendan and I were slower than usual because of our respective lack of sleep (Brendan was partying and I was worrying), I'm afraid Tom went away quite bored. I think he expected a lot more action, but as I explained to him, this is pretty much a two-man job, with a lot of down time (thinking, planning, organizing and then reorganizing).
One of the biggest surprises today was that we found several unpicked vines of Sauvignon Blanc, which after harvesting, yielded a half a ton - this will make a barrel, or 25 cases, of our first dry white wine. Since Brendan and I have never made a commercial white wine, it required much thought and planning to decide on exactly how to handle this fruit. We eventually decided to press it, without crushing first, and then moved it to a tank and added some dry ice to chill it down overnight. Further decisions will be made tomorrow morning.
Steve Ryan and his crew picked the Pinot Noir the first thing this morning, and when the crew and grapes arrived here at 9:30, we sent the crew out to our vineyard to pick the Sauvignon Blanc we had just "found," as well as Merlot, Barbera and some additional Zinfandel (these particular vines were interplanted many years ago in the same block with some Petite Sirah vines). Thus, we had to flag the Zinfandel vines to make sure only those would be picked and not the Petite Sirah, which probably still needs another week to sugar up. Then Brendan, Tom and I began to set up for work in the winery - now not only did we have the Pinot to work on, but also Merlot, Barbera, Zinfandel and even Sauvignon Blanc! Later, when we crushed and tested the individual lots, all four reds registered at between 25 and 25.2 brix.
My lack of sleep last night was mostly due to my concern over the Pinot Noir and how to ferment it. As I have discussed in the last two days, we had decided on three distinct fermentations. The first fermentation was the traditional method I use described yesterday. The second fermentation, a carbonic maceration, which was modified by crushing half the clusters and adding those on top of whole berry clusters in the fermentation bin. We will use the dry ice to preserve them until fermentation starts naturally in the next several days. We decided to crush some of the grapes, rather than to leave them all whole, because the clusters were very small and did not juice up naturally. The third fermentation involved a cold chill down to 40 degrees after crushing and we'll keep them there for probably a week..
Wednesday, October 7 1998 (39 low; 80 high)
(By Brendan)
Just for the record, Dave can sometimes be very impressive. You'll NEVER hear this from him and in fact he will vehemently deny it if you ask him. For me the foundation of any great wine is the location of the vineyard and the winemaker's ability to know and extract the uniqueness of that vineyard. Truly great wines require a depth and understanding of the varietals that you're growing and a deep awareness of all of the unique characteristics of the site they're grown on. For this reason (and others) Dave is really cool. After 20 years of growing grapes and making wine from the same 20 acres of land, Dave possesses a knowledge of his estate property that I am in awe of. As a small example, today we were sampling 6 different blocks of grapes (2 Cabernet, 2 Carignane and 2 Petite Sirah). After having me test the first 3 samples, Dave started predicting the readings I would get on the next 3 samples. Dave's prediction for the 2nd Block Carignane- 23.0 (actual 23.0). Dave prediction for the 3rd Block Carignane- 22.0 (Actual 22.0). His final prediction for the bottom Cab 22.0 (Actual 21.8). If you've read our previous comments about the incredible variability between varieties and blocks, then you get an understanding for how difficult this could be. As a Viticulture Geek, I'm impressed.
Although being impressed by Dave could be a full-time job (that should be good for a raise), we actually did many other things today. The most interesting was Dave's decision to pick an additional ton of Sauvignon Blanc to add to the Sauvignon Blanc we had picked yesterday. We now have enough to make about 110 cases and I'm getting scared; first a little Sauvignon Blanc, then some Chardonnay later in the season....... before you know it, we will stop making Zinfandel and Petite Sirah because we need the barrel space for Muscat Canelli and Chenin Blanc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (O.K., maybe I'm over-reacting).
The cool thing about making the Sauvignon Blanc and the Pinot Noir this year is that we get to use Dry Ice. Whenever we add Dry Ice to the Sauvignon Blanc in our small stainless tank, the juice starts to bubble and a thick, white mist comes up from the inside of the tank and spills over the side like a smoking cauldron. Industrial Light & Magic eat your heart out!
Thursday, October 8 1998 (50 low; 80 high)
It wasn't until this morning that I had a chance to look at Brendan's notes from yesterday. As any proud employer would be, I was surprised that Brendan has a certain admiration for me. Brendan is wise beyond his years; otherwise, I wouldn't put up with him, nor he with me. He is smart enough to praise me and smart enough to take my abuse. He also commands everyone's respect. Brendan has decided to go to school at Cal Poly to pursue his viticulture degree for two semesters out of four each year. He has been insightful enough to understand that he can obtain more knowledge from on-the-job training during the other two semesters. I am very proud to have him as my assistant winemaker, but enough of this mutual admiration society - as we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.
Most of our time today was spent preparing for the pressing of nine tons of Zinfandel. We hope to fill 25 barrels, or 625 potential cases of Zinfandel. Since we have already pre-sold 450 cases, we must end our futures program for Zinfandel at this time in order to be able to participate in a couple of winery-related events next spring. We had to fill these 25 barrels with water to make sure they sealed up without leaks, and we will have to empty them tomorrow morning before we press. At this time, we are not sure whether we can finish all the pressing in one day.
We decided to take the Pinot Noir cold soak (third fermentation) out of the tank because we could not get the Sauvignon Blanc below 60 degrees with our dry ice experiment. I would like to ferment the Sauvignon Blanc at 55 to 60; therefore, we replaced the Pinot Noir with the Sauvignon Blanc in the chiller tank. The Pinot will slowly warm up from 47 degrees and we will let it get to 60 before we will add our yeast.
We will probably harvest some Chardonnay from Ryan and Cab and Carignane from our vineyard next week.
Friday, October 9 1998 (47 low; 77 high)
Our day began at 7AM and ended at 6PM. We filled over 25 barrels. The color on some of the zin was light for this vineyard, but respectable. There seems to be more tannins than usual--maybe because of a lack of body? IT IS SO HARD TO TASTE WINE THIS YOUNG. There is a great deal of fruit and spiciness and that is what I want at this stage. It will be so hard to beat 1997 for concentration.
Saturday, October 10 1998 (48 low; 80 high)
Today we did a lot of clean up and greeted 30 customers. We sold out of our last 2 cases of ZPC Cuvee and since we only have Estate Cuvee left, we are trying to decide whether to accept customers for tasting in the next few weekends. The Pinot fermentations are coming along just as we hoped. The First - hot fermentation - is at 90 degrees and is down to 10% sugar. The Second fermentation - the Carbonic - is warming up and has just started fermenting. Also the Third one - the cold soak - is warming up and I added the Assmannhausen yeast which starts real slowly. The Sauvignon Blanc is fermenting at 55 degrees, just where I want it. The Syrah which we will press Tuesday has fabulous color.
Ryan called today and said he was getting booked up for harvesting next week. So it looks like we will go with some Carignane, Petite Sirah and the Aca Modot Cab on Friday or Saturday.
]]>Sunday, September 27 1998 (morning low of 47; 70 high)
(by Pat Coffaro, keeper of the records)
In response to the email message we sent out last week to all of you for whom we have addresses, we heard back from lots of people with positive comments about the diary (well, there was one guy who said our diary needed "more sex and less violence" - I won't name names - you know who you are!) and we appreciate the feedback. I'm going to hopefully mention everyone who e-mailed us this past week and if I left out anyone, be sure to let me know so I can get my records straight.
From |
|
California | Mike and Carol Whelan, Andre Roberts, Drew Watson, Michael Pendleton, Larry McFadden, Dennis Sienko, Nick and Susan Garvey, Susan Larson, Phil Adcock, Allan Bree and Sue Backman |
Illinois | Mark Horvatich, Steve Egan |
Ohio | Robert Cohen |
Massachusetts | Bill McKeon |
Colorado | John Salamanski |
Florida | Mike Hull, Tim Baker |
Texas | Bob Brueck |
Washington, D.C. | Michael Straus |
Virginia | Linda Baldwin |
Michigan | Michael and Deborah Brenton, Mark Overberg |
Connecticut | Jeff Kiplinger and Jane Withka |
New York | Ken Seibold |
North Carolina | Jim Cowan |
Alabama (soon to be New Mexico) |
Susan and Ken Dalluege |
Canada | Chris Bee |
Iowa | Brian Kinsella |
As you can see, we have heard from a good cross section of the country and even from neighboring Canada. Isn't the Internet a wonderful resource, that is *when* it's working? We hope you will all keep in touch as the season progresses and continue to send us any questions you have as they provide us with ideas for material to include in the diary.
Monday, September 28 1998 (50 morning low; 82 high)
There was a scare yesterday in Sonoma County and it wasn't from my screams of joy when the Raiders won their game against the Cowboys! The cause of the scare to many growers and wineries was the light rain which materialized without warning. My opinion is that anything up to a half an inch of rain really does not hurt the grapes at this time of year. As a matter of fact, it can improve the situation because a light rain washes off the leaves and we need nice, clean, green leaves to ripen the fruit - as long as the rain is followed by warm, sunny weather. This rain was so light that I did not even get a measurement in my rain gauge.
I received a call from Doug Nalle this morning (he had been out Sunday morning checking his remaining section of Zinfandel), and he wants to harvest this section on Wednesday. Julia at Lambert Bridge most likely wants to harvest their Sauvignon Blanc on Thursday. In the afternoon Steve, Brendan and I decided to visit Simpson's Syrah vineyard and Lane's Zinfandel vineyard. The Syrah looked very close to being ready and tasted wonderful. The sugar tests came in at 23.5 and if we have two warm days, it should rise to over 24 so we will mostly likely take that fruit off the vine Thursday afternoon. The Zinfandel grapes on the other hand tasted flat and lacking in flavor. The sugar tests we took on these grapes were still running low at around 19.5 to 20. Steve has decided to cut off some of the obvious red bunches. In a year like this it is not surprising that this vineyard which is only four years old, cannot effectively handle the amount of crop that it produced. With a little extra care and more time, it should come around though.
Tuesday, September 29, 1998 (49 morning low, 71 high)
Pat and I got married 25 years ago today. We obviously did not pick the right date. We were not expecting to have a winery. We did celebrate at a local restaurant tonight. We were greeted with cold, clear skies at 6:30 this morning, but by 7:30 the fog was rolling in. Brendan did sugar tests on the fermenting bins of Teldeschi Zinfandel and found readings of about 5% residual sugar at this time. We are looking to press at about 1% and by tomorrow afternoon it should be there, so we will most likely press then because we plan to be busy with harvest all day Thursday. It will take approximately 5-1/2 barrels to accommodate the pressed wine so Brendan is preparing six barrels, filling them with water to swell up the wood and check them for leaks. If we don't have enough wine to completely fill six barrels, we'll use only five and put the extra juice in 5 gallon jugs. After the sun comes out today, I'll send Brendan out into our vineyard to do numerous sugar tests. If the tests come in as anticipated, we hope to begin harvesting for ourselves early next week.
9 AM: We just heard the weather forecast predicting a significant storm coming in on Saturday. There could be 1-1/2 to 2 inches of rain in our area followed by several days of cold weather. This could mean that most of the Zinfandel that does not get harvested this week will begin to rot, so we are changing our plans to try to get in as much of our Zinfandel crop as we can before Saturday.
10 A.M. I called Steve to see what his plans were: no one had requested harvesting until Friday. I booked him through Thursday. I instructed Brendan to prepare for HARVEST, instead of doing sugar tests.
11 AM: Steve called back and said he might be able to get a few pickers in late today--Did I want to start today?? YES!!!!
12 Noon: I got a call from Julia at Lambert Bridge and even though we got sugars of 22 on the Sauv Blanc, she still wants to go Thurs. morning. She also said she would be willing to take Zin today.
12:15 PM: I saw two cars drive into our vineyard. We were expecting some futures customers to come by for tasting, but were even happier to see some pickers.
12:30 pm: 5 workers started picking Zinfandel for Lambert Bridge.
4:30 pm: We finished harvesting 3.25 tons of Zin for Julia.
9 PM: Back from a nice meal. Brendan and I threw out many bunches of red fruit and also rot amounting to several hundred pounds. {We harvest into bins which only hold 1000 pounds and are only 4 feet off the ground. We can usually sort most of the fruit depending on how fast the pickers are.} Even though we have had only a sprinkle of rain in the last two weeks, the mornings have been moist from the fog and the days have been cool, creating many problems including rot. THIS COULD BE THE HARVEST FROM HELL. Brendan and I feel that by sorting the fruit we harvest in the next two days that will give us enough quality to produce superior wine---BUT we will have to discard as much as 25% of the fruit. We will sort all bunches. From the bins, we turn our grapes out onto a stainless board and taste and look at all bunches. We throw out what we do not want. Plans are to pick Zinfandel for Doug Nalle tomorrow morning, Julia right after that, and for us late in the day. Thursday we will harvest Sauv Blanc for Julia in the morning, followed by Syrah from Simpson and Zin for us.
The latest forecast is for rain coming in Friday and not 1 inch, but as much as 3 inches. We hope to get all our Zin in by Thursday.
Wednesday, September 30 1998 (morning low 52; high 77)
Our first full day of harvesting started at 7:00 a.m. with Zinfandel for Doug Nalle, followed by Zinfandel for Lambert Bridge Winery. By 10:30 our workers were finished with those two lots, and they started harvesting for our winery. A total of 16 tons of Zinfandel were harvested from our vineyard today. Many scattered grape bunches were left on the vines and at least 15% of the fruit picked was thrown out by Brendan and I. Overall, harvest at this point was down 20% from normal.
Brendan and I pressed the Teldeschi Zin (at between 1 to 2% residual sugar) into six barrels, which is a yield of around 175 gallons per ton, somewhat up from "normal." The remainder of the fermentation, down to less than 0.1% sugar will occur slowly in the barrels over a period of the next month. We must be careful to monitor the fermentation because when it does stop giving off gases, the wine will no longer be protected from air contamination (which is the most likely way to spoil wine) so we have to be sure the barrels stay completely full with no air space. At around noon time, we started crushing the 10.3 tons of Zinfandel harvested for the winery. At 5:30, after numerous interruptions, we stopped with only three tons completed. The sugar readings were encouraging, averaging around 23 brix. With swell-up over the next 24 hours, we expect sugar readings of over 24%, converting to alcohol levels of from 14 to 14.5%. The flavors were very good, promising another fine vintage. We still have over seven tons to crush tomorrow and plan on starting at 7:00 a.m. and hopefully finishing by 6:00 p.m. Also tomorrow, we must harvest about 8 tons of Sauvignon Blanc for Lambert Bridge and we also expect to receive 3 to 4 tons of Syrah from the Simpson vineyard in the afternoon. We will most likely do the crushing of the Simpson Syrah and all the clean-up on Friday, as the hand sorting and crushing of the Zinfandel will be very time consuming and will undoubtedly take all day tomorrow.
The weather forecast for at least the past week has been for warm temperatures into the 90's and then rain. As you can see from our daily temperature readings, the 80's or 90's never materialized and the rain is still in the forecast but hopefully not as heavy as predicted in the last couple of days. The weather in northern California at this time of year is impossible to predict even 24 hours in advance, but every possibility must be taken into consideration and we feel comfortable in making the decision to take the Zinfandel off the vines before the weekend, whether or not the rain materializes. We still have plenty of grape varietals left out in the vineyard to worry about in the next few weeks.
Thursday, October 1 1998 (morning low 58; high 65)
(By Brendan)
I finally really feel like it's Crush. I've been feeling sort of guilty that I've only been putting in 40-50 hours per week. This week however we've moved into some respectable Crush hours. I started today at 7:00 a.m. and as of now (8:00 p.m.) I am still working. That's more like it! Anything less than 12 hours and I feel cheated. I should make 60 hours by Saturday and then I'll know I've earned my paycheck.
Mother nature has not been kind. Just a few weeks ago we were having almost a 50 degree difference between our high temperature and our low temperature. Today there was only a 7 degree difference. This is not good. Dave grew up in San Francisco and knows that it is tough to grow even lettuce in San Francisco weather. The weather we've been having for the last week is typical San Francisco weather and we don't like it! The Sonoma County Grape Growers Harvest Report says that there will be be .4 to .6 inches of rain on Friday and "...more showers, gusty winds and light rains" on Saturday morning. On a scale of 1 to 10 ("1" being complete atomic destruction and "10" being trapped on a bus in the snow with 20 lonely, red-headed cheerleaders who need to huddle together for warmth) this ranks about a "4."
Today was a difficult day. We started destemming and crushing the 10.3 tons of Zinfandel at 7:00 a.m. and at about 9:00 a.m. we developed a serious problem. Our Destemmer/Crusher suddenly stopped working and ended up filling up with crushed grapes instead of pumping them out to the tank. After removing about 20 - 30 gallons of crushed grapes (a.k.a. Must), we managed to figure out that the problem was a stripped screw that attached the bottom feed-screw to the rest of the Destemmer. Unfortunately, the machine we use is Italian which means that when it runs it's great, but when it breaks, you're really screwed. In order to fix this one stripped screw, we had to dismantle the entire Destemmer which took us at least 1-1/2 hours and severely tested our engineering skills. Our vineyard manager, Steve, was an invaluable help, as was our good friend and sometime volunteer, Michall ("Mitch"). Among the four of us, we had the Destemmer up and running again in no time (actually, about 5 hours from start to finish).
The musical theme of the day was Mahler (the Austrian composer). We started with his 2nd symphony, moved to his 3rd symphony, then transitioned to his 8th symphony ("the symphony of the thousand"), moved back to his 6th symphony (twice), skipped over to his 4th symphony and ended up with his 7th symphony. That's a lot of Mahler. Tomorrow we will explore more dead composers.
Final disjointed thought....... The Simpson Vineyard Syrah finally arrived at about 7:30 p.m. which means that our exceptional picking crew put in a really heavy day (7:00 a.m. - 7:30: p.m.). We got six bins, none full, which means there's definitely less than 3 tons of Syrah which is a little lower then we had hoped for but the quality looks beautiful (from what we could see in the dark).
Friday, October 2 1998 (low 46 degrees; high 76)
The day began with the prospect of getting through six tons of grapes to crush. Out of that six, we were expecting around 2-1/2 tons of Simpson Syrah which we knew would go through our destemmer quickly because there was no rot or red bunches. As we've mentioned, Zinfandel sugar readings range from bunch to bunch and also within a bunch from 18 brix to over 30 brix. Syrah, on the other hand, does not vary much from bunch to bunch, making it easy to pick and crush. After weighing the Syrah, we were disappointed that the actual total was only 2.08 tons. If we had been planning to make a 100% Syrah varietal, that would yield approximately only 130 cases.
Even though Brendan and I were up after midnight celebrating our biggest day of crush this year, we were anxious to start this new day and I wanted to provide Brendan, Mitch and I with more classical masterpieces to work by. This time, the dead composer was Tchaikovsky. Brendan had either had too much Coffaro wine last night (he stayed for dinner and spent the night) or his ears were just not receptive. As I walked in and out of the winery numerous times during the day, he kept crying out for Mahler instead. One time after I had been gone for some length of time and came back in, I was surprised to hear musical strains of an entirely different sort - Lyle Lovett's new CD. He said this music was good for soothing his broken heart over his recently lost girlfriend - effectively playing on my sympathies.
All this musical intervention gave us an inspiration. We decided to keep all the grapes that we've rejected in the last two days and ferment them separately. We suspect even though the sugar will be much lower and alcohol accordingly lower, too - perhaps around 12% - the wine quality could possibly still be very good. This experiment will act as a control and will hopefully prove to justify all the time we spent in separating out these grapes (a minimum of 15 hours' time in my estimation).
My work day ended at approximately 5:30 p.m., while Brendan remained in the winery for another couple of hours cleaning up, moving bins full of Must, and listening to music of his own choosing - the price he must pay for being the young assistant!
Saturday, October 3 1998 (low 45; 77 degrees high)
We left Brendan in charge of the winery and to finish the enormous task of clean-up after two days of crushing, while the family went out to see Susie's soccer team win again (hooray!). By the time we got back at around noon, Brendan had managed to get everything back in order, as well as begin to greet the many groups who stopped by, some new visitors and some here for '97 futures pick-up. Brendan packed up and headed for San Luis Obispo for a couple of days to "tie up some loose ends" while Pat and I spent the afternoon promoting, pouring and boxing up wine for people from both northern and southern California, as well as two groups from the Chicago area, and a couple from Texas.
The rain which had been predicted to develop this weekend fortunately never materialized, but temperatures have remained cool for two weeks now. I am praying for warm weather and dry conditions in the next few weeks, as my next big concern is the Petite Sirah which, like Zinfandel, also has thin skins and is very susceptible to rot. I am extremely happy with the ten tons of Zinfandel we took from our vineyard. The sugar after swell-up registered over 24%. The colors and flavors seem to be outstanding. The sugar reading on the Syrah after crush was 22.6, over one percent lower than we would have preferred, but the acids were falling off very fast and I think we made the right decision in taking the grapes this past week. With the hope of warmer weather conditions coming up, we plan to be harvesting Merlot, Malbec, Petite Sirah and Carignane from our vineyard, as well as the Pinot Noir from Ryan's vineyard within the next week.
]]>Sunday, September 20, 1998 (morning low of 60; high of 90 degrees)
I spent part of the morning moving equipment around and setting up the winery for the first day of our crush on Tuesday, making sure to leave most of the heavy labor for my younger, more agile assistant Brendan who will be back tomorrow. I called John Teldeschi next door to see when he thought his grapes would be ready to harvest and found out that his reading and ours were over 2 brix apart, so we decided to do another, more thorough sugar test in the next couple of days to make a final determination on whether or not to pick his grapes this week. A few out-of-state visitors also stopped by this morning to pick up or check on their '97 futures orders and we did a little tasting with them before the 1:00 p.m. Raiders-Broncos' game, which I suffered through with Kate. Maybe I should have just stayed out in the winery and poured wine this afternoon; it would have been more enjoyable, I'm sure!
Monday, September 21, 1998 FIRST DAY of FALL (morning low of 48; high of 79 degrees)
It's 8:30 p.m., and I just went out to check the high temperature of the day and as you can see above, the high was only 79 degrees. This is the lowest high temperature we have had since June. We need 80's and 90's to get the fruit ripe. As I am writing this, I am rethinking our plans for the next several days. As a grower and winemaker, I spend each day calculating and then recalculating when we will actually harvest. In fact, we began this day in anticipation of harvesting tomorrow. Doug Nalle called and said that his tests from Saturday turned out lower than he thought. He would like to wait until this coming Saturday to harvest the rest of his grapes.
Brendan started off the morning doing several sugar tests, and at 8:30 a.m. while he was still out in the field, I got a call from my vineyard manager Steve Ryan that his crew was looking for work, asking if I was ready to harvest today and he would like to send them over within a half an hour. When they showed up 15 minutes later, I put them to work pulling weeds since we definitely weren't ready, nor we were planning, to harvest today, but I was somewhat hopeful that the tests Brendan was doing might tell me that we could harvest something today. However, Brendan came in with samples of the Lambert Bridge Sauvignon Blanc which looked very inconsistent, and we decided to test the green bunches separate from the yellow (or more mature appearing amber) bunches. In a typical year, the Sauvignon Blanc bunches tend to be amber colored. This year, however, they are more like the red varietals, in that the color of the grapes on the clusters are very inconsistent. So we separated a few green bunches from the numerous amber bunches and did separate sugar tests. The green bunches gave us a reading of 17.8 brix, and the sample of the more ripe bunches turned out to be 22 brix. Since Lambert Bridge would like to have 23 brix, it looks like we're still off another week at this point and definitely no chance of harvesting today or tomorrow. I decided that Steve's crew will have to continue to pull weeds for the rest of the day.
The tests for our winery's harvest turned out to be surprising, too. Typically, in one of about every three years, a situation exists where the vines need a rest and the sugar samples do not go up for a week or two. This is one of those years. Today's samples reflected that situation. The bottom Sauvignon Blanc, the Merlot, the Barbera, the Petite Sirah on the knoll, the Cabernet on the knoll, the Cabernet on the bottom, the Teldeschi Zinfandel, and the even the Lambert Bridge Sauvignon Blanc had not gone up since our last test seven days ago. The Teldeschi Zin did come in at 23% brix and we have made a decision to start harvesting that on Wednesday. Nothing is written in stone, however, and things may change tomorrow.
Bruce Simpson, a neighboring grape grower in the Dry Creek Valley and one of our first customers, has some Syrah grapes for us this year. He called this afternoon with a sugar reading of 22.4. That is encouraging since we would like to harvest those grapes next Monday.
Tuesday, September 22 1998 (morning low of 54; high of 71 degrees)
We woke up to a heavy fog. Heavy enough to get wet. The sun did not come out until 4 pm. We are a little apprehensive, but will be receiving two tons of Teldeschi zin tomorrow. I spent almost all my day tending to my computer. We had many problems which meant I had to go to Santa Rosa for repairs. I won't go into detail! It is too involved and I would get more upset. Some problems remain unresolved. We are still scheduled to crush our first Zinfandel tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 23 1998 (morning low 44; high 80) Our Crush Begins!
We crushed our first grapes today from the Teldeschi vineyard, our neighbor right next door. Since it is contiguous to our property, the possibility of using it for our estate wines exists. Two tons of Zinfandel were harvested and Brendan and I spent the morning hand selecting, de-stemming and crushing. Even though we would have liked to have had 23.0 to 24.0 brix and the sugar reading came in at 22.6 initially, we are so happy with the quality, flavors and the way the grapes looked and tasted, that we know we should be able to make great wine from this juice. We will let the crushed grapes soak up until mid-day tomorrow and then check to see how much higher the final sugar reading will be.
I am still having trouble with my computer and we also had 8-10 groups of visitors come by in the afternoon for various reasons - some to pick up wine, some new people who wanted to taste, some neighbors checking in, and even someone who just wanted to hear the sound system! Even though I feel that I want to greet as many people as possible, I know my primary purpose is to do the best job I can with the wine and I don't want to lose that focus. I have to work on being firm, yet diplomatic, which is a difficult accomplishment for me at any time of the year, but especially so at harvest!
There was no fog today. Even so, the temperature only reached 80 degrees, an improvement from the last two days, but we still need higher temperatures before we will be able to harvest any more grapes. Tomorrow I hope to spend more time on my computer, while Brendan tends to the grapes just crushed and prepares further for upcoming harvest days. No matter how long you wait and how ready you think you are, there's always still more to do!
Thursday, September 24 1998 (52 degrees low; 79 high)
After 24 hours of soak-up, the Zinfandel grapes harvested yesterday did not disappoint me. We achieved an average sugar reading of 24.0 brix. We inoculated the two one-ton fermenters with two different types of yeast. One being a slow fermenter and the other, PDM which is a fast fermenter. I plan on doing more experiments with yeasts this year which I will explain in more detail as the season progresses.
Brendan spent most of the day installing 3-inch stainless steel valves on 10 or so new one-ton fermenting bins. We have been fermenting all of our grapes in half-ton and one-ton fermenters. A half ton will produce one barrel of wine, but we prefer one-ton fermenters because they produce more heat during fermentation. So with these new bins, we now have 20 one-ton fermentation bins, which will enable us to do almost all our fermentations in one-ton bins this year. By using 3-inch valves, we are able to pump from our stemmer (many wineries also use rollers, thus the terminology for the de-stemming machine becomes either a crusher or a stemmer-crusher) to our fermenting bins and then after a week or so, back out of our fermenter into our press, saving us many laborious hours. A very small percentage of wineries do all processing with gravity, rather than pumps. In other words, their fermentation vessel is higher than their storage tanks or barrels. On the other hand, almost all wineries of over 2000 cases use pumps. Many theorize that pumps agitate the grapes or wine to an extent that creates bitterness or harshness in the wine. I am not one of them. However, I did invest in the most state-of-the-art pump available, which is said to be the most gentle on the grapes and wine. In the next several weeks, I hope to explain my theories on many different types of fermentations.
Last year a new winery was established just south of our place on Dry Creek Road. Virginia Morgan and David Cooper are calling their new venture Yoakim Bridge Winery. Today David asked me to come over and take a look at his vineyard. I was very envious of the apparent visual quality and taste of the grapes. Their vineyard appears to be at least a week to ten days ahead of mine in maturity. I advised him to pick tomorrow and he agreed with me. I am anxious to see what sugar readings he gets tomorrow on his harvested grapes. This will be their second vintage, and they are planning to release their first wine, a1997 Zinfandel, in January.
Friday, September 25, 1998 (morning low 54, high 72 )
(By Brendan)
Did we move to Carneros and someone forgot to tell me? For the fifth day in a row it was overcast and the sun did not come out until about 3:30. This is really strange for the end of summer in Dry Creek. I spent the entire day in the field sampling grapes for our sugar tests and pH's. The results were mixed. On one hand, all of our sugars were up from the previous week. Unfortunately, on the other hand, they were only up about half of a degree (translation "These grapes are movin' slower than turtles in molasses" - not a pretty sight, trust us). Dave ended today talking with the always enthusiastic and brilliant Julia Iantosca, winemaker for Lambert Bridge Winery (she promised to read this entry later, "Hi! Julia").
The good news is that I have my weekend free so I can terrorize the Sonoma countryside in search of cool new wines. Dave will probably spend his weekend preparing for and mourning over the Raiders game against the Cowboys on Sunday.
A note from Dave: One of our faithful readers, Michael Whelan, asked a question which I thought should be answered for everyone. He wanted to know "since the weather is turning cool and the grapes are still on the vine, is there any risk to the crop?" My answer is that as long as it doesn't rain, the crop should be of great quality. Even if there is some rain, only the Zinfandel could sustain some damage from rot because of their thin skins, and that hopefully would be minimal. The Cabernet and Carignane are historically harvested in October anyway and can withstand rain very readily. Of course, the best possible scenario would be warm weather and no rain for at least another month!
Saturday, September 26 1998 (morning low 47; high 77)
Another day of overcast skies and cool temperatures. Well, at least we can look at two tons of Zinfandel fermenting away in our open-top bins as a reminder that we really are in the middle of the harvest season! After another afternoon soccer game for Susie, we rushed home to greet lots of guests (all from California and many from right here in the Healdsburg area) who stopped by today to pick up wine, chat, taste, and listen to a little music. One unsuspecting couple from Orange County were visiting the Dry Creek area for the first time, and you could tell they didn't know if they were in the right place when they stepped into our wine warehouse/movie theater set up!
]]>Sunday, September 13, 1998 (morning low 52; high 102 )
It's football season and Sundays are officially my days off. I took my oldest daughter Kate down to Oakland to see the Raiders-Giants' game today. Believe it or not, she is a more avid Raiders' fan than even me, so now at least I have someone to commiserate with when necessary. But today we celebrated as the Raiders beat the Giants 20-17! Maybe there's still hope that the Raiders will go all the way this year, and that money I bet on them in Reno earlier this year wasn't as bad as losing it to those one arm bandits.
We're continuing to get more feedback from some of you out there and we appreciate your interest and best wishes. The latest to email us are Steve Adelman from the San Francisco south bay area (who would like to come up and work the Zin crush for a day if the Brix readings coincide with his schedule), Scott Bailey from New Hampshire (he's hoping to make a trip out west next month and if so may get a chance to see a little action here), Paul Eccles from the San Diego area (he's interested in our Syrah program, though it's doubtful we'll do it as a varietal, and is looking for some of that elusive late harvest sauvignon blanc), and Robin Garr (he's got his own web page "www.wine-lovers-page.com/forum/general" where lots of wine lovers hang out).
10 pm I just went out to look at the high/low temps today. As you can see the range was 50 points. As most of you know almost every area in the States will have a much smaller range between the high temp and low temp. For instance Hawaii will usually have a range of 10 degrees (high 85 ; low 75), while San Francisco would be more like 65 high 55 low in the summer. The Modesto area in California's Central Valley produces highs of 90 and lows in the 60's. Russian River and Bordeaux would be more like 80 high 50 low. The Dry Creek area, especially where we are out towards Lake Sonoma 7-1/2 miles from Healdsburg, will usually range from 90 high to 50 low. But it is not unusual to have as much as 60 point ranges in June or September of say 45 and 105. These extremes within wine growing areas attribute to the great quality of wines produced. The jammy flavors achieved in wines from Dry Creek are from the higher temperatures and extremes. The vines need a rest during the day!
I have found that my best vintages have been in high production hot seasons such as 1997. No year has been the same!! No year has been normal!! 1991 was cold and had a big yield. It produced wines with great flavor, but no color. Hang time?? I have found that the shortest hang times and HOT years have been my best vintages. Where does that leave 1998? Was it cold? YES!!! Was it hot? YES!! Hang time? Late start, late finish. Is it high quality - ??????
Monday, September 14 1998 (52 morning low; 91 high)
I talked about the extremes of temperatures yesterday. Today, we woke up to a summer day pattern that occurs at least twenty times during the season. At 7:00 a.m., we had fog rolling up the valley, and by 8:30 it was gone, retreating back down Dry Creek Valley. The fog influence from the ocean in northern California contributes to our low overnight temperatures of around 50 degrees. The fog in Sonoma County that reaches us comes in from the ocean through the Russian River Valley. The Russian River Valley ends at Healdsburg, and from Healdsburg north, is the Dry Creek Valley where we are located. We are essentially as near to the coast as most of the Russian River wine growing area, but there are mountains to the west of us. We do get the influence of the cold fog from over the hills occasionally, but it usually must first come up the Russian River Valley, through Healdsburg, before reaching us way out here in the valley. Therefore, we have less fog than a lot of the surrounding areas and thus higher overall temperatures. For instance, today Healdsburg had heavy fog for several hours, while out here in the valley, we were only slightly influenced for about an hour. As you can see, the high temperature today reached 91 degrees, which was pretty much an average day in Dry Creek Valley for this time of year.
Brendan was kept busy today taking new sugar readings from our estate vineyard. The Cabernet on the "Aca Modot" knoll was around 21 Brix. The first crop on our Barbera was around 23 Brix with still extremely high acid. I plan on using Barbera because of its high acid as a balance for some of my wines which can be lower in acid because of our high temperatures. Malbec, my first crop, is at about 21 Brix. The Cabernet from the sandy loam (used mostly for my Estate Cuvee) was at 19 Brix, while the Petite Sirah was at 20 and my few vines of Merlot tested at 22. Steve Ryan and I spent several hours today deciding about our first day of harvest. Ferrari-Carano would like to harvest Sauvignon Blanc tomorrow. They achieved a 23.2 reading today on the sample they took from their block of our vineyard. Steve and I need until Wednesday to get ready for the first day of harvest. Ferrari-Carano agreed to go with harvest on Wednesday morning starting at 6:30 a.m. Steve and I now are spending most of our time deciding what type of bins to harvest into and the logistics and organization of the picking for the first day. Brendan and I will go down to San Francisco tomorrow to pour samples for our distributor Estate Wines. The pouring will be held at Fort Mason to show many wines that they will carry. Some of the retailers and restaurants that may want to carry our wines will be there. Brendan and I will be checking out some of the restaurant wine buyers. We are hoping to have dinner at one of these great restaurants tomorrow night.
Tuesday, September 15 1998 (54 morning low; 83 high)
(By Brendan)
With Crush being as late as it is this year Dave and I have been able to go to a couple of wine events that we aren't usually able to make. Today we spent most of the day in San Francisco. We started out at Tower Records where Dave stocked up on some DVDs (Digital Video Discs) for the winery theater and then spent the rest of the afternoon at a retailer/ restaurant tasting for our distributor (Estate Wines). We were pouring our '97 Zin, '97 Estate Cuvee and our '97 Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc all of which got very favorable reviews. The tasting was exciting for both Dave and I because we got to meet and talk with owners/chefs/sommoliers from many of the best restaurants in San Francisco. From this huge selection of great places to eat Dave and I narrowed our choices down to a restaurant on Geary called Socca (I believe our very scientific selection process might have involved something resembling Einey-Meenie-Miney-Moe). [As a side note I finally managed to introduce two of my favorite people in the wine industry: Dave and John Alban (Central Coast Rhone Wine making legend).]
Socca was incredible Dave and I split the breaded sweetbread appetizer, a bowl of corn chowder and a Caesar salad for starters and had a bottle of Fiddlehead Sauvignon Blanc (one of my long-standing favorites from the Central Coast). For our main courses we split a marinated beef skirt steak, a perfectly cooked pork chop dish and a layered vegetable dish that was topped with a grilled Portabella mushroom. We shared a bottle of our 1996 Petite Sirah with the manager and our server and also sampled a great Spanish wine whose name escapes me. We finished off the evening with a melt-in-your mouth warm chocolate cake (paired with a 1990 LBV port), a gelatin dessert and some Germain-Robin XO brandy (which Dave had never had the good fortune to try before). Boy, this winemaking thing can get tough some times!
Wednesday, September 16 1998 (54 morning low; 87 high) The Harvest Begins!
(By Brendan)
Today we had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that I had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to get to work (never a good thing). The good news was we officially started Crush with our first batch of Sauvignon Blanc for Ferrari-Carano. Picking got started about 7:15, after a little prep work, and went until about 1:00. In that time our crew of 8 people picked 8.3 tons of grapes and managed to get done right when it started to really warm up for the day. A sample by the winery from one of the bins read 24.5 degrees brix. Tomorrow we will finish the second half of Ferrari-Carano's Sauvignon Blanc.
We were also visited by Doug Nalle who sampled his blocks and decided to harvest this Saturday. I think Doug said that he got around 21.5 for his Zin today but it is tough to tell because he has a very detailed process for determining his harvest sugar levels. I believe what he actually said was that he got 21.2 on his refractometer and his partner got 21.7. This measurement is guaranteed to be lower in the field than it will be when he measures with his Hydrometer from the tanks when he harvests (due to the fact that Zin sugar goes up 24 hours after harvest. Read Dave's entry for Sept. 8th). This only worries Doug about the North block however, because of the great number of raisins, and not so much about the South block (which seems visibly behind). Therefore I think that if he got 21.5 today that means that it will probably be about 22.5 in the field with the refractometer on Saturday afternoon, which means that it will be about 23.5 with his hydrometer in the tank on Sunday morning, which is where Doug wants it. I think that is right but I'm sure that Doug would disagree about the details. (Don't worry, I'm confused too.)
As a final bit of good news we got three interesting deliveries today. The coolest delivery was a new propane forklift with a three-stage lift and sliding forks (Arrgh! Arrgh! Arrgh!) (I'm going to miss the Diesel exhaust from our old forklift, it made me feel happy!) We also got in 7 new French Oak barrels from World Cooperage and I got a new custom-made, stainless steel Stick-like-Thing for doing Punch-Downs. [When red grapes ferment the skins float to the top and form a solid layer called the "Cap". To get the best results possible you must break up the Cap and mix it up with the rest of the fermenting juice. This is normally done 2-4 times/day].
Thursday, September 17 1998 (43 morning low; 88 high)
(By Brendan)
It's all about love! I really LOVE Crush. This is such an exciting time of the year. Everything we do in the next 2-3 months dictates almost everything about how our wines will turn out and what happens for the rest of the year. The hours are long, the work can be physically exhausting, you're a slave to the whims of nature and it can be mentally draining but ultimately, if you love what you do it doesn't matter.
Sauvignon Blanc II: The Continuing Adventure. It started out cold today. As of 7:00 a.m. it was in the mid-40's and really foggy. We had a great example of how transitory the weather can be in Dry Creek. At 9:00 I remarked to one of our harvest crew that I was amazed that it was still so foggy and then watched over then next 10 minutes (literally) as ALL of the fog burned away and was replaced by open blue skies and the sun. It was absolutely fascinating to watch. Our crew ended up harvesting another 7.75 tons of grapes today and most of the sugar samples came in around 22.5.
I sampled the second major block of Sauvignon Blanc on our property that goes to Lambert Bridge Winery. It provided an interesting example about the great degree of diversity that exists, even on our tiny property. While the sugar levels on the Ferrari-Carano Sauvignon Blanc will probably end up at around 23.0, the Lambert Bridge Sauvignon Blanc (which is less than 200 yds. away) is only at about 19.8 and we probably won't even think about picking it for another week or so.
Friday, September 18, 1998 (48 low; 88 high)
First thing this morning, Brendan and I delivered 45 cases of 1997 Zinfandel and Estate Cuvee to Root & Eastwood Wine Shop in Healdsburg (707-433-8311 or 800-546-7311). This is the only retailer I sell to directly, so I also have to make the delivery. It's actually kind of amusing to drive up to their store with a pick-up loaded down with cases of wine. Sort of like the farmer driving his hay wagon into town to sell his crops.
Brendan spent the rest of the day doing sugar tests and obtaining PH (acid) readings. Most of the Zinfandel tests from our vineyard read between 22 and 23 brix. Teldeschi's Zinfandel next door was measured at over 23 brix. We will probably harvest one area of our Zinfandel and also Teldeschi's on Tuesday. The Lane Zinfandel (from across the valley) only moved from 16.7 to 18.1 in one week. This is still somewhat concerning. We may have to cut off some of the fruit in order to speed up the ripening process. The Pinot Noir I'm getting from Ryan's vineyard in the Russian River area is 22.6, and we will probably harvest that within ten days. And, as planned, tomorrow we'll start harvesting our first Zinfandel for Doug Nalle. I'm sure he'll be here bright and early (he always supervises picking himself), so I'd better go try to get some sleep.
Saturday, September 19, 1998 (50 morning low; 90 high)
Hi, it's me, Pat, I'm back for the weekend's notes. First, I want to mention all who have e-mailed us this past week with your "diary feedback." Bob Cohen a Compuserve Wine "forumite" from New York, Duane Zitzner from the South Bay Area (Duane and his wife Kay also visited us a couple of Saturdays ago when we had a big crowd and we appreciated Kay's talented pouring services behind the bar for a bit), Everett Bandman from the Sacramento area (also quite often a valued volunteer here for pouring, labeling, or whatever), Dave Sit from the nation's capitol where things are in a bit of a turmoil these days, Doug Powers from the Sacramento area (he, too, always a willing volunteer who faithfully checks our diary to be sure we haven't fallen behind <g>), Richard Ensor, a faithful long-time supporter from San Francisco, Ty Danco who calls himself our "Vermont fan," Dri and Brad Brown from the Pasadena area (Brad's the guy behind the scenes who designed this web site for us and, in addition to that, both he and Dri even like the wine), and Toby Holden who stopped by the winery today to pick up some '97 futures and said he has been visiting our site, too. It is reassuring to hear from so many of you, and we look forward to hearing more. Also, if you have any questions, please email us so that we can try to answer them.
Getting back to today's activities, here are Dave's notes: The day started out pretty much as anticipated. Doug Nalle, his wife Lee, and their assistant (a volunteer I believe) were here at 6:45 a.m. But, believe it or not, they weren't the first to arrive. One of the harvest crew showed up before 6:00 a.m.! This is not unusual during the harvest season, as many seasonal workers don't have transportation of their own and often depend upon friends to drop them off at their destinations. More often than not, the friends are working in an entirely different area of the county, so it's anybody guess as to what time some workers will show up and just "camp out" waiting for work to begin. Well, anyway, the rest of the crew arrived just before 7:00 a.m. and they were actually out in the field picking grapes soon after. The picking was sparse, but this area of Zinfandel, including other mixed varietals, has the lowest yield of the entire vineyard. We ended up with 3.6 tons (on 1-1/4 acres). Steve drove the grapes to Nalle's winery and what happens to them now rests entirely with Doug. He'll call and give me his final sugar/acid readings when he gets the numbers himself and then I'll have a better idea about the remaining Zinfandel in the vineyard.
The picking ended about 11:00 a.m., then Steve Ryan and I spent a couple of hours talking about plans for harvesting next week. Steve's crew harvests for other vineyards, too, so we have to work around his other obligations. Later, Julia, the winemaker for Lambert Bridge, came out to discuss her plans for harvesting their block of Zinfandel and also the Sauvignon Blanc they are taking. It appears that we will be picking for at least two days next week, one day for our wines and possibly another day for Lambert Bridge.
]]>September 6, 1998 (98 degrees high; 62 low)
What started out as a day reserved for watching baseball and football, turned to a morning of wine tasting when Ed and Ann from Missouri stopped by to check on their 1997 wine futures and to make arrangements for shipping. While they were here, the Whelans, the Lotts, Cliff and Gigi and also a few new faces "caught" us out in the winery. Anytime there are more than two people here, it is occasion enough to crack open a few more bottles. But we shooed everyone away at 1:00 as I headed into the house to watch baseball and football. We won't talk about the outcome of the evening's Raiders-Chiefs game. Let's just say it was a good thing we still had some wine left in those bottles we opened earlier today!
September 7, 1998 (morning low of 62; 100 high)
I turned on the drip irrigation in the second block of Carignane and have definitely decided not to water the Zinfandel again until after harvest. Steve Ryan, my vineyard manager, stopped by this morning and we discussed my impending purchase of a ton and a half of Pinot Noir from a vineyard he leases in the Russian River area. I have already purchased a chiller to cold soak the Pinot Noir before one of the fermentations. I am planning on three different types of fermentation, putting each lot in a separate new french oak barrel. Steve and I also discussed the possibility of my purchasing some Chardonnay grapes from the same vineyard. I told him I would consider custom crushing the grapes and then make a decision later about the possibility of bottling them under my label. I have been reluctant to make white wine in the past because it should be fermented cold, but now that I have a chiller for the Pinot Noir, I am thinking that maybe I should consider making some white wine to help recover the cost of the chiller.
11:00 a.m. Time to crank up the projector in the winery and get the baseball game of the season on the big screen. Lucky visitors from Connecticut Debbie and Dave O'Neil were with us (for the second time this weekend - they wanted more of our wine to take home with them!) when Mark McGwire hit the big no. 61. Shortly after that, the Radeskis came by to pick up their 1997 futures and do a little tasting - Jude Radeski holds the honor of being the first person that we know of to actually have read this diary - "Hey Jude" don't let us down - we hope you'll stay with us for the duration! We rounded out the afternoon with visits from Sandy Lindley, Doug Powers, Mary Ann Mullen, Ron van Thiel, the Thurmonds (who coincidentally were visiting from St. Louis, Missouri - but unfortunately missed seeing the game) and Bob and Joanna Swofford - Bob's with our local newspaper, The Press Democrat, and says he might link our Harvest Diary to their great web site: "Winetoday.com" - check it out!
September 8, 1998 (morning low 56 degrees; 88 high)
2. Doug Nalle of Nalle Winery came by this morning. He has purchased wine grapes from me since 1991. He is always the first one to harvest from our vineyard. Doug is always trying to achieve a wine under 14% alcohol. Most wines produced in the market are under 14%. Zinfandel is one of the few varietals very difficult to keep under that percentage. The berries in an average Zinfandel bunch can vary from 18% sugar to over 30%, while a Cabernet bunch probably varies between 22 and 26% sugar. Zinfandel bunches have raisins integrated within the bunches which attributes to the inconsistency. So both bunches - Zinfandel and Cabernet - may turn out to be, for example, 24% sugar. Cabernet will stay at 24% sugar for 24 hours before it starts fermenting. Zinfandel, because it does have raisins, will go up in sugar within 24 hours after crushing. After soaking up the juice and expanding, raisins create more sugar. Zinfandel is very unique in that respect. That soaking up creates more alcohol than you might expect, so your final sugar level cannot be determined until actual fermentation, which doesn't take place until at least 24 hours after crushing.
3. Getting back to Doug Nalle, I have the highest respect for him. It is very difficult to create a Zinfandel under 14%. He is producing one of the most elegant Zins on the market today. I am trying to create a wine somewhere between 14 and 15% alcohol, but this is no easy task either. Doug thinks that he will be harvesting Zinfandel here within 10 to 15 days. Sugars change dramatically within two to three days, so we usually harvest right after Doug. He's trying to harvest the grapes at 23% sugar and got readings at 20% today, and my goal is to achieve 24% sugar, so it usually works out well if I pick a day or two after him. It's so hard to predict the sugar levels in the grapes until they are actually picked in bulk, so I rely on Doug's first harvest as an indicator of whether or not I should pick the next day.
September 9, 1998 (morning low 52 degrees; high of 82 degrees)
I woke up this morning and while flossing, my crown came off. Therefore, I spent half my day at the dentist (have to make sure my teeth are in good shape for grinding once the harvest starts). In the meantime, Brendan did some sugar tests of our sauvignon blanc for Julia Iantosca, the winemaker at Lambert Bridge Winery. Julia came out to taste these samples and we gave her readings of around 20 brix(%). The readings and tastes indicated to her and to me that harvest is at least two weeks away for their section of sauvignon blanc in our vineyard. Ferrari-Carano should be coming in to test their section of sauvignon blanc tomorrow. Brendan also went over to the bordering vineyard next door and got a reading of 17.5 on Teldeschi Cabernet and 20.5 on Teldeschi Zinfandel (both of which we are taking this year for use in our programs). He will do samples of the Lanes' Zinfandel (another "Neighbors'" lot located at Colline Vineyards on West Dry Creek Road) tomorrow.
Have to mention that we've heard from two more people who've read our diary. Thank you Jonathan Herman of New York and Paul Fernbach of San Francisco for your diary feedback. Is there anybody else out there listening? If so, let us know what you think and if any of this makes sense.
September 10, 1998 (morning low 47 degrees; high of 89 degrees)
(written by Brendan)
Today was a day of tests. It started with me testing Dave's patience by cranking up Tori Amos and PJ Harvey on the stereo (one of the great fringe benefits of this job). We then embarked on a complete testing of all of the properties that Dave is purchasing grapes from this year. Our results were varied. On the Lane property our sugar for the Zinfandel was only 16.7 degrees Brix (Brix is a measurement of % sugar by volume - 24 degrees Brix = 24% sugar) and the Petite Sirah was at 19.0 degrees Brix. There was a heavy discussion between Dave and Steve Ryan about irrigation practices at the Lane property. A low reading of 16.7 is cause for at least a little concern this late in the year but this has been a very unique year anyhow. I also tested the Pinot Noir for this year's Burgundian Adventure and it came in at 19.2. The new Syrah we are making this year from the Simpson Vineyard tested at 18.7. Our general goal for Brix is 24.0 which means that we have at least 2-3 weeks to go until we pick our reds.
For our property, Ferrari-Carano came and tested their Sauvignon Blanc block. They got a reading of 21.5 (which is similar to what I got when I tested the same block later in the afternoon). Since Ferrari-Carano likes their Sauvignon Blanc to be picked around 23.0 degrees Brix, we may actually be harvesting within the next couple of days. Ferrari-Carano will be coming out on Tuesday to re-test the sugars and if the grapes are ripe, then we may be harvesting on Wednesday. A good rule of thumb at this time of year is that sugar levels will increase 1.5 degrees Brix per week but the range can be anywhere from 0 to 2.5 degrees Brix per week, depending on many variables.
Friday, September 11, 1998 (morning low 54 degrees; high 97 degrees)
Good news! Kenneth Starr has decided not to indict David Coffaro Winery for our role in the Clinton/Monica scandal (rumor has it that innocent Monica was initially tempted by a bottle of our '94 Zin). Although our humble web page cannot match the 300,000 hits per minute that CNN.Com is getting for the Starr Report, our harvest log has gotten very good reviews and we thank you all for your notes. In fact, we just heard from Sean Colgin, vacationing in Maui with family and friends, that he's going to check in with us while he's there - now that's real dedication to our cause! Sean, we hope you are having a great time and drinking lots of fine California wine while you're there (including that Coffaro stuff you took with you).
Believe it or not, I was trying to watch the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament today, which CBS kept interrupting to give us all the sordid details on the Clinton fiasco. I did manage to see Martina Hingis make a come-from-behind win, as they kept cutting away to the likes of Clinton crying on cue. It was an interesting mixture of emotions. Brendan, on the other hand, spent most of the day running very important errands, generally preparing for crush and labeling an entire pallet of wine by himself. We briefly entertained winery guests and futures customers, Gary and Esther Koker and Gerry and Kenneth Walling. Remember those 35 cases of second lot estate cuvee I mentioned a week ago that I was going to evaluate for the possibility of selling? Well, the wine has acquired a new name, "ZPC Cuvee" (that stands for "Z"infandel, "P"etite Sirah, "C"abernet and "C"arignane) and the inventory of it has been dwindling little by little each day as I tell everyone this is a once in a lifetime effort (which is true by the way, since I haven't a clue as to how I might duplicate it). If you get a chance, drop by soon and get a taste of it.
Saturday, September 12 1998 (morning low 53 degrees; high 100)
As you probably know by now if you've ever met me, I get most of my sports activity sitting down, and now I can add soccer to the long list of spectator sports I enjoy, since my youngest daughter Susie played the first game of her first-ever soccer season today. So we "closed down the winery" and the entire family went out to cheer her on in the 95 degree heat of midday! We returned home just in time to cool off in the windowless, air-conditioned winery and to greet a few visitors who had planned to stop by today to pick up '97 futures orders and to do a little tasting. We saw many new faces including a big contingent of Compuserve/Internet wine forum users, brought here by futures buyers Randy Buckner and Jenise Stone and we thank them for introducing so many new people to our wines. This group of about 20 were from all over the country and had met up in Calistoga for a long weekend of wine country touring. Betty and Bob Walker got here in time to taste the dregs of a few bottles of wine and to see and hear a bit of the video "Tina Turner Live." Whenever we get a chance to put her up on the big screen and crank up the sound, the whole building vibrates to the beat. Also joining us for a few nibbles and additional wine tasting in the evening, were new friends and customers Q and Willy, and long-time friends and recent customers, Cammy and Einar. Although this was officially Brendan's day off, he was on a busman's holiday and came by with some friends for a little tasting in the midst of the crowded afternoon and immediately jumped in "behind the bar" to help out with pouring, etc. Did we ever mention that Brendan's "other job" is as a wine steward for a big hotel/restaurant in San Luis Obispo County? So he really knows how to talk up a good wine!
]]>September 1, 1998
Just to start out, I thought I'd tell a funny story that happened 3 harvests ago -
It was a trying day in Dry Creek Valley. After harvesting 20 tons of Sauvignon Blanc for Ferrari-Carano, we started in on 5 tons for our own Zinfandel. Everything went well until my best friend who was driving my tractor could not see where the tractor wheel ended and my toe began. Of course instead of thinking too much about where to go for the next harvest section in the vineyard, I should have been looking at the tractor wheel. Needless to say I had to crush the 5 tons even though I was bleeding away. THE HARVEST MUST GO ON!!
Now, on to this year's notes:
September 2, 1998 (102 degrees high; 55 low)
My assistant winemaker, Brendan Eliason, arrived this week so I had to put him to work. We drove over to Lambert Bridge Winery this morning to pick up a few new barrels we ordered to add to our inventory of used barrels for the coming harvest. After that, Brendan and I filtered the last two gallons of 1997 late harvest sauvignon blanc, which we then hand-bottled and labeled and plan to sell only at the winery in half bottles for $20. Based on our walk through the vineyard yesterday, it looks like harvest will begin around the 20th of September, starting with the grapes for dry sauvignon blanc which we sell to Lambert Bridge Winery and Ferrari-Carano. Zinfandel for Nalle Winery and for our program will probably start a few days later.
September 3, 1998 (103 degrees high; 53 low)
9:30 a.m. Jeffrey from Ferrari-Carano made his second appearance of the year with the result of the sugar tests on the sauvignon blanc grapes being sold to them. Six days ago he had a sugar reading of 17.8. Today the test was 19.3. It appears that we are 2 to 2-1/2 weeks before harvest of these grapes. Ferrari-Carano wants 23% sugar.
10:30 a.m. I put Brendan to work to prepare for bottling our second lot of 1997 Estate Cuvee. To explain a little about how this second lot came about: we left approximately one-half gallon of wine in each barrel after the July 6-7 bottling. That created approximately 65 gallons of wine after settling. Since we do not filter or fine, we want to make sure that the wine we bottle is clear and so allow it to settle for several weeks. This settled wine is then what will be bottled as our second lot of estate cuvee.
11:30 a.m. We had six people stop by for futures pick-up and tasting. Since they were interested in our DVD set-up, we viewed a little of the movie "Space Jam" at their request. It was definitely the highlight of the day!
12:30 to 3:00 p.m. Back to work, Brendan and I bottled the second lot estate cuvee (messy work), ending up with 35 cases. Everyone who is "lucky" enough to come by the winery in the next few weeks will have a chance to evaluate the wine to decide whether or not we should label and sell it.
4:30 p.m. Brendan leaves for a four-day weekend, but the Coffaros having no place to go, will keep you posted on the weekend's activities.
September 4, 1998 (92 degrees high; 60 degrees low)
The Labor Day weekend traditionally means I'm out in the vineyard counting vines, looking at bunches and preparing for harvest, if not actually harvesting, so it seems odd that I get to take the day off today and drive to Santa Rosa to visit my favorite hangouts: Costco and Best Buy. I always come home with more than my family thinks I need, but you never know when you might have a cookout and need 6 giant bottles of ketchup!
September 5, 1998 (81 degrees high; 61 degrees low)
After almost a week of temperatures in the 100+ range, we woke up today to gray, overcast skies - which thankfully brought not even a traceable amount of moisture for the day instead of the predicted thunderstorms. Trouble with my irrigation pump which is located down by the creek prompted me to take another look at the vineyard today, and the grapes have dramatically changed in color and apparent ripeness, so it now appears that the harvest may begin a little sooner than I had anticipated, but certainly not before the 15th of the month. The pump needs servicing and new parts so it's a good thing that we are approaching harvest, as I normally cut off irrigation 2-3 weeks before harvest anyway. While I was out in the vineyard, Pat spent the morning boxing up cases of wine for a number of people who were planning to drop by to pick up their 1997 futures orders today. It turned out that approximately 40 people stopped by and we enjoyed an afternoon of tasting wine, listening to music, and reacquainting ourselves with so many of our faithful supporters!
]]>