David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery

arrow November 2 - November 22, 2014

Monday November 3, 2014

Pat and I are leaving for a cruise tomorrow and will be back in 13 days. I hope to survive the flight and a captive on a ship.........They better have good food. I am bringing aboard 6 bottles of my wine. As long as they have Tequila, and lime, I will be fine.

I received a great email to make me happy today:
 
>>>>do you sell either your 2012 or 2013 Block 4 wine at any wine retail stores in the East Bay CA.??? I live in zip code 94595, Walnut Creek CA.  please let me know. Thanks<<<<<<<<<<<<<
 
Below is what I sent her. After that I will talk more about Block 4...........

"We always offer Block 4. The wine is made from 120 year old vines. Some of the nurseries way back we were born, were not too particular about what they grew. I will resume later in my diary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera........

Block 4 is our most popular wine and we would be happy to sell to any retailer. They just have to call us. We can only make 500 to 700 cases a year which is a lot for us and we can sell it all here. You could always buy it direct from us. 2013 futures is a good value................. "

That is what I responded to that nice email message.

We have many many vines in this vineyard which were planted 115-120 years ago. As I said above nurseries were not perfect back then. Vineyard owners were not interested in what they got because they got the same price for all grape varieties. Most of the wine back all thorough prohibition went mostly in to jugs. Most people into wine those days were from Europe and they liked a glass of wine...........but I suppose bourbon came in interest.........more alcohol............

So our Block 4 was planted over 100 years ago and probably 120. If I had a marketing employee, I could probably sell Block 4 for well over $100 a bottle. It is certainly more unique than most wines in the world. I have a monopoly. No one can produce wine from the 4th block in my vineyard but me. There are at least 10 vines of different leaves growing in our 2 acres of Block 4. It is the most interesting area around here............ 

Saturday November 15, 2014

8:27 Pm:

I am still trying to figure out my Kitties after being away for 11 days

Pat and I have been in Florida for 5 days out of the last 11 and was on a cruise for 7 of those days.. I really enjoyed reading 3 books, the end of one and two Sandra Brown mysteries. I love reading but Pat is more interested in learning more things about other places. I like more to escape in a novel. I was extremely impressed with the food and wine on this Regent cruise. But Pat is more frugal than I so she said "I had 10 drinks and it would have cost us $100 but in reality since we pay for unlimited alcohol, we actually may be paying $1000. To me it is worth it because the wine was very good. Every night  they had a theme for wines..........Chile, Italy, France, Argentina and USA......I could have missed one, yes Spain and Sicily and I am sure more great wine areas........I could go on     but.............It is after 8 and I have been up since 1 am our time AND I want to see something on video before I crash......................... I will have more tomorrow.................................................................................................

Monday November 17, 2014

8:47 Pm: It seems like many days since Pat and I have been back. It has only been a total of 56 hours. I went out today and shopped. I like shopping because as I have said before, I like spending money. I went to Costco, second best place to explore!! Amazon is first!! I think I have a sound system picked out for my Mother..........even at 92 years old she hears well. She is blind in one eye and half in the other so she has had to depend on hearing well. I know most of you have heard about our senses and if one goes down we feel more with our other senses. So my Mother likes hearing stereo (She said  the left speaker was not working) surround sound I think she would enjoy. So I have a wireless sound bar.........5.1 picked out for her. 

I enjoyed my adventure to spend more money. I even bought a computer. Pat hates changes so I have to be careful to help her change. Pat's computer is old and should be updated so I have to be patient and try to convince her that this new computer will be better SO I will set up everything that is important for Pat and when I have everything ready I will replace her old computer with a new one. I hope it goes well.

Matt is back tomorrow and we will discuss about winemaking, easy for both of us. And we will arrange for the release of the rest of our 2011 Pinot Noir Sparkling, just a little winemaking. We have had some demand for our sparkling which is good. Like I have said I like the style we are using.......A lot of sparkle and tart..........

Tuesday November 18, 2014

8:47 Pm: I wrote to a person who has purchased our wine and has been disappointed with one of our 2010 Wines AND then we have a request from a different customer who wants to have the same wine. So here is what I have to relate.............

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>I am one of your wine club members.
I wanted to reach out to you regarding this experience I had with one of the 2010 Block 4 bottles.
We opened a bottle on Mon 11/3 and it was not good at all. I decanted it for a few hours hoping that would help.
It tasted very "Pruney" like the fruit was over ripe and had a gritty texture. There was way more sediment in the decanter than with other bottles.
Anyways, we poured it out. 

This was bothering me because I love this wine and it is one of my favorites.
So on Tues night 11/4 we opened another of the two remaining bottles I had left to compare the experience. This second bottle was perfect. Nose, palate, everything just as it should be.
I also noticed this bottle did not have the excessive sediment like the first one opened on Mon night.
Your wines are normally consistent with the screw top enclosure, but I am not sure what happened with the one I received.

I attached a pic of the two bottles we opened along with the last one we have remaining in the cellar.

Can you offer me another bottle of comparable wine the next time I stop by the winery for a visit ?
I should be in town MLK weekend in January or for barrel tasting in March.

So I want to respond but I am thinking about how to say........Here is what I have so far


"""I am sorry you had a bad wine. There were two versions of 2010 Block 4, one was aged longer and had less acid so maybe the second wine was smoother because of lowering the acid, only my guess                       Like I have said many times before these 2010 wines will out live me because of high acid. Please, any time you want to come back and have a free wine let me know. The 2010 vintage is the only vintage that could be questioned, but I still think this vintage will maybe be great at some time.

 Patience is a virtual...........Look..........I have tasted all the great wines in the world way back to  the year 1969...........and then i tasted many wines from the past back to the 1929 Vintage

Bordeaux is popular because of the Mystique. I do not like Bordeaux any more. I liked my cruise especially because we could taste some nice wines, some as enjoyable as mine. Regent Cruise Lines is a treasure if you want to spend a lot of money...........

so on the ship we went to a tasting of nice wines from all over, a free event. It was organized by the Sommelier. He was Pompous and even distracted. His theme was Old World vs New World. After the tasting we had several days of good time..................

so I liked some Chilean wine and Spanish and they were of course in New world and Old world. They had a few Bordeaux wines that they gushed about which were low in alcohol and light in comparison. I guess I am out of it. I like more concentration and so all the wines from the so called new world were fine and then I liked all the Italian wines so We know about French wines but I think Spanish and Italian wines are just as good............

Wednesday November 19, 2014

8:15 Pm: It is getting late but I will upload some more info. I want to finish my last Sandra Brown book, the second on my trip...........

I loved the wine on our cruise but all was paid for in a big way..........Regent was great..........but I was easy.........nice wine and great food....................a lot of waiting though........

Amazon is great!!! They have so many people to answer our disputes.  I complained on one dispute I had with one of their customers, an independent company not related to Amazon's large suppliers. I had a call back today right on time from A nice guy from Amazon who I talked to yesterday. He informed me: since this lousy company did a bad job in sending me something I tried to cancel the first day and was delivered 2 weeks later.............I was given back my $7 for shipping back the item...............Amazon is my biggest stock holding but maybe Tesla should be my first:

http://newsletters.fool.com/1069/coverage/updates/2014/11/19/why-tesla-is-more-than-a-car-company.aspx?source=ipeemleml0000003

Some of you I hope care about our problems here. We had no internet or phones last week and no uploading of images on our front page. Brad and I care about these images so we worked for about 15 hours and so now Brad and I and hopefully some of you will enjoy to look at what we do. The new camera in the winery will upload an image. Brad and I did have a fun time. It was complicated..................I love what I do

8:47 Pm:

Below is a copy of the link about Tesla above............I love my Model S

Why Tesla Is More Than a Car Company

By Simon Erickson
November 19, 2014 - Analysis

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Two weeks ago, I dove into the company's earnings report. Last week, I had lunch with an electrochemist. And it didn't take me long to realize that five years from now, this company will be doing much more than making electric cars.

Let's start with the Gigafactory. Elon Musk & Co., along with help from partner Panasonic, are ponying up $5 billion for a factory that by 2020 will provide the equivalent of the world's current annual supply of lithium-ion batteries. (It's supposed to be done in 2016.) Tesla said the Gigafactory would provide batteries for the existing Model S luxury family sedan, the upcoming Model X SUV, and the still veiled "Model 3." The Model 3 aims to be a more affordable electric vehicle that will sell for about $35,000. Tesla believes the mass-market-affordable price point will spur the adoption of electric vehicles, and the Gigafactory is designed to supply enough batteries for 500,000 vehicles per year.

That last part made me raise an eyebrow. Half a million cars per year is an ambitious expectation, even for the company's Midas-touch CEO Musk.

Don't get me wrong; the Model S has been selling well. With the recent upgrades to Tesla's manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif., the company now expects to be able to supply 100,000 vehicles a year by the end of 2015. And I have no doubt that the Model X and Model 3 will be well-received by the market.

But to put things into perspective, new-car sales in the United States peaked last year at 15.6 million. The single best-selling line of vehicles was Ford's F-series pickup, which sold 763,000 units. The best-selling car was the Toyota Camry, which sold about 404,000 units.

Tesla's plan to sell 500,000 vehicles a year — even if split among three models and selling globally — would vault any one of them into near-best-selling territory. And that's assuming that Fremont continues to aggressively invest to upgrade the assembly lines.

Perhaps Tesla can pull it off. After all, it's Musk. But even if demand for the S, X, and the "3" doesn't keep the Gigafactory running at full capacity, the company has plenty of other options.

As you've doubtless noticed, other automakers are showing an interest in electric vehicles. Nissan, Ford, and most of the other large manufacturers are introducing electric models of their own — trying to capitalize on this growing trend without disrupting their core businesses too badly. Tesla has publicly stated that it will open up its patent portfolio to encourage other car makers to drive the adoption of this new industry. Of course, with best-in-class technology and a huge lead on the competition in manufacturing, Tesla would have no problem selling its batteries to rivals as a pretty lucrative side business. Batteries are one of the most integral parts of an electric vehicle, and Tesla thinks the Gigafactory can reduce their cost by 30%.

Or perhaps there's a more disruptive solution: Tesla could consider leasing the batteries to drivers, who would replace them every few years to improve a car's performance. This would turn one of the weaknesses currently limiting the adoption of electric vehicles on its head: If consumers are concerned about a vehicle's range before the battery needs to be recharged, why not upgrade the battery itself every now and again? Drivers could significantly extend a vehicle's lifespan and lock in a long-term relationship with Tesla.

But why stop there? Couldn't Tesla's batteries also be used for other things? Back to my discussion with that electrochemist.

While enjoying a lunch of Thai drunken noodles (which were so spicy that my cheeks were sweating), I learned that there is very little difference between a lithium-ion battery used to power a car and one used to power a cell phone. A battery's applications are largely governed by its power (that is, its size and amperes of output) and its number of life cycles (how long it lasts before going bust). Other than that, battery chemistry is agnostic. A lithium-ion battery could be used to power Tesla's vehicles in fundamentally the same way that it powers Apple's new iPhone 6.

That last point could be an important one. Smartphones are getting packed with software that chews up battery life ever faster. Musk's Gigafactory will let him simultaneously optimize battery performance and minimize costs — the Holy Grail for consumer-electronics companies. About 1.2 billion smartphones are expected to be shipped during 2014, up nearly 20% over 2013. Consider that battery demand and then add in rising demand from the utility industry (i.e. SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY)) and wearable technologies (i.e. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Glass), and Tesla's "side business" of supplying batteries to other original equipment manufacturers could very well supersede the demand it sees from its core auto market.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Tesla called overvalued in the past year, mostly based on variations of a "right now" analysis.  Right now, Tesla has a market cap of $32 billion and is expected to ship 35,000 cars this year. Right now (with a bit of rounding) that is a roughly $1 million valuation for each car Tesla annually ships. Right now, much of the market thinks Tesla's valuation is preposterous.

Valuation is subjective for each investor, but my point is that the future Tesla could look very different. Its Gigafactory will be a game-changer, and I'm excited to watch the company accelerate into a few new industries.

Friday November 21, 2014

9:15 Pm: Tesla stock is down so you could buy more. I have plenty now for the "Future" to get rid of oil. Oil is caustic as we know.

Like I have said, we have had so many problems here when we were away and back here now. Our internet has problems and Cindi's partner, Bill really helped out so he only wants a wine barrel and that is OK with me.

Matt and I have been involved..............getting ready for bottling and before that blending by leaving 4 gallons in the bottom of a barrel and putting the rest of the 56  gallons into our many blends. I have an excel with all the info ready for anyone interested. I have attached it up on this diary before but I have not heard back from anyone interested.  


For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com

Dave


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