September 9 - September 15, 2012

	Monday September 10, 2012  I have been thinking again. Of course that is a good thing. We are getting anxious for more harvest so Matt and I have decided to make two new wines. Matt wants to make an exclusive light Zinfandel for our club members, probably only 13% alcohol. The wine will come from our Demple clone that originally was called Block 6 Zin. We budded over some Petite Sirah in our 5th block to this Demple clone two years ago. I was hoping to use this section for my RaiZin this year but some of the vines are showing red leaves so the fruit is not ripening fast enough. This area may work for our light Zin. I also have been thinking of another sparkling wine made from some petite sirah. So far this year we have produced some pinot for sparkling wine. We have several vines with white grapes that are intermingled in our old vine reds and also some in our newly budded cabernet sections. Nurseries can mix up budwood so this happens. On Wednesday I have decided to have Catarino and his crew pick all the odd white vines and see how much we get. We will then top off the bins with some petite sirah and eventually make some more sparkling wine. It may be called Dave's Sparkler or something like that. I love making wine.  Wednesday September 12, 2012  12:00 Noon: Today we had fun. We picked some grapes for my new sparkling wine. It may be called Dave's Sparkler. Early this morning we sent Catarino and his crew out to pick all our odd whites intermingled in the old vines and some of our new plantings. We don't know the exact percentages but the varieties included, Sauv Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Golden Chaslis, Mission and Muscat. The total of the whites was 800 pounds. We then had them pick 1050 pounds of Petite Sirah in our least ripe area. The Petite Sirah had a sugar of 19.5. The whites may have been around 23 brix. We destemmed the Petite Sirah and left it on the skins for one hour and now we will press the whites with the Petite Sirah and see what readings we get. 2:30 Pm: Well the master blender came through again, this time for my new sparkling wine. Yes we have a balanced bunch of fruit ready to ferment. The overall sugar is 21.1 and the PH is 3.2. I will have more accurate readings by tomorrow. I may decide to add a little tartaric acid to bring the PH down to 3.1 and thus raise the overall acid level. We have enough to produce about 50 cases. We did sugar tests and found that our Pinot Noir is finally ready. We have decided to pick tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what sugar we get but today our samples came in at more than 25 brix and a PH of 3.3. 8:00 Pm: Remember this is a diary for me. My Mother is important even in Harvest. My sister is not. It is sad but I have no desire to see my sister again. She doesn't read this diary so I can tell the truth but this is a diary about my family a little,.............. so I have to hope she goes before me, then I would love to say more. So, tomorrow I will visit my Mother. She is important and I want to check out this new Fiesta I mentioned last week. so i will drive down and drop off Pat so Kate and she will have an adventure in SLO, Kate's old College town. Kate has an assignment during the day on Friday and they will have a good time after. So i will miss my first Harvest in 34 years. I will be back by 3 and check the numbers. Matt may still be here. He will be happy, I will not be around to question him at every step. I left instructions to Catarino and Matt but I have tomorrow lost control and hopefully they will make the right decisions...............There are 4 sections of Pinot and we could ferment in different ways................ Saturday September 15, 2012  Harvest is here, but we will wait another several days for Zinfandel. Catarino is anxious, Matt is anxious, the warriors are ready also. We have Jose, (Catarino's and Martha's son) who is only 21 and really strong. Then we have two other warriors to help pick. Catarino asked them for help and they are here making $700 a week......net. They are older but still strong. Salvador is helping Matt this year and they are perfect together. Any of you are welcome to help but some of us know, Matt is in control when I am not near. Matt thinks he is the winemaker, I am the guider. Ok, the numbers for the Pinot harvested Thursday are interesting....as expected....no year in 34 have been the same.....that of course includes personal life....but back to wine.....we got more Pinot than we expected and sugar was good, 24 brix or so. Zinfandel is near so it could get crazy next week. Breaking Bad the series is interesting if you want to get into cooking. We cook but nothing like they are doing in the program. Remember it was illegal 80 years ago to produce alcohol........wait I am getting paranoid, maybe Romney will want to get rid of alcohol? Just kidding.
	Dave david@coffaro.com
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