July 5 - July 11, 2015

	Monday July 6, 2015 I wrote this on July 4 I am concerned, we have to bottle on July 6, Monday, so I still have time to prepare. I  rely on my great guys to do what I want I feel guilty I can do as much physical things. I did it all or most until 1998, and a lot until I was 60 in 2003               I think Brendan, then Matt did a good job, but I still want to start having more input, which Matt took away from me. He was too organized and did not ask enough of me so He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible every day, like we were all too slow. He was the best at that, but we need to change the style of our wines and I have said, that means lowering our alcohol to under 16%, but I also want to make several wines that have less alcohol. Most of you know, most of our wines have been over 15 percent alcohol, even our 2014 Rose is high in alcohol also..............  I have to delegate authority once in while. Delegating authority is not good if you are young and have an idea. Do not ever stop dreaming, I never will Today July 6 was an adventure!!!!! Nothing went right for 6 hours.......... We started at 7am. It took a while to clean the two tanks and start putting the 2014 Carignan in the tank, our first wine. After most of the wine was in the tank, frantically several of our great employees said the wine left in the bucket was dirty, meaning a little cloudy, some minor sediment. I do not want any sediment in my wines so I stopped the racking, moving the wine from the barrels to the tank, to be a blended wine, but I want my wine to be clear so we thought what to do...............We moved the racking wand up so we left 2.5 gallons of wine in the barrel instead of only1/2 gallon for the last few barrels o Carignan and all the Grenache.......... Why did we have to do this, long story So we had 16 barrels in one tank, an equal blended wine, including some sediment. I was so happy I could make a decision and had some responsibility. I cussed Matt several times because if he was a decent person he would have been here for the first few hours as he promised.............. The tank is narrow and tall so we decided to drop a hose into the top of the tank, and drop it down 2/3 rds way and draw the clean clear wine off the top because the sediment drops quickly in a wine.. Later in the day we transferred the rest of the wine into barrel for our 2014 16 Months Carignan. I tasted the wine tonight and it is very nice. I preferred both the 2014 Carignan and 2014 Grenache to the 2013 wines bottled last year at this time. I like young wines so I liked the 2014's because they were less smooth, so if you like more mature wines and thus more smooth, I would go for the 2013's............. We had nothing but trouble on our bottling line. I hope Matt is happy since he was not here. Nothing went right for 4 hours. We had only bottled 100 cases, but then we all stepped up, all great employees and friends I thought, the last two hours we did over 200 cases and we think tomorrow we should be ready for 2014 Daves Cuvee, 570 cases? Tuesday July 7, 2015 I got on the scale for the first time in over a month. I hate getting on the scale right after a vacation. I like desserts and sugar so yesterday I decided to cut out all carbohydrates, especially sugar. So I was not happy yesterday, I weighed 229.8. Last time I was weighed at 225, just before our vacation starting on June One. So I gained about 5 pounds. When i was in Hawaii on my honeymoon in 1973 I weighed 225. I lost 50 pounds in 2000 and was 221. I also got down to 211 back a few years ago. Carbohydrates are my downfall. We leave for San Diego on July 20 so I want to get down to 225 by then, I was 229 today so I am eating very little but still consuming wine......... To night I tasted the 2014 Grenache again and really liked it. I also tasted the two Carignans again and A bottle of 2009 Escuro which was showing real well, with still  a lot of guts. We bottled 2014 Dave's Cuvee to day and it was very similar to my 2013 Dave's Cuvee. The 2013 was more smooth but still had this nice complexity and balance. I can't explain what I tasted, but again I was amazed how similar the two wines were. Both came from half second crop so maybe second crop is unique, yes.......... Tomorrow we do 2014 Terre Melange and 2014 Aca Modot....fun, fun. fun.......... Wednesday July 8, 2015 I forgot to say I sold 130 shares of Tesla lately. The first 30 was at 251 a month ago..............it has gone up a lot since then..........and then yesterday I sold another 100 at 271. Tesla has gone up a lot, especially from earlier this year from about 180 to Monday at 282. I thought about selling at 280 but I know there are a lot of shorts hurting so I knew there would be a big surge if it went over 290, it didn't happen, the Market is down and many of us have profits so why not sell some, I have more...... and I will buy back BUT SO I have $35,000 more in cash.........I already had a lot more in cash at Schwab. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO a new forklift is coming this week...........ALL ELECTRIC.........so I will put my money earned from profits in Tesla and put it into something Catarino, Josh, Jose, Salvador And ME will enjoy. Today did not go well in many ways. At first our old forklift did not start and the big one is hard to see through the front............long story............At the end of the day, we had to transfer 4 barrels, 240 gallons, 100 cases back in barrels from our tank. We all left at 5:30 otherwise it might of taken a lot more time, because we had problems with the screw cap loader, Velcorin machine, and the screw cap sealer. The biggest problem is the screw cap loader. I is not working well. Screw caps have to be put on the bottle moving at 175 cases and hour, 2100 bottles per hour, one bottle every half second. If something goes wrong we are in big trouble...........bottles go through not right. Sometimes the cap is not on when the filled wine goes to the labeler,...........Martha is the watch person, she sees everything before it goes into a box. Most of the time the problem is the screw Cap dispenser is not working right and thus if a cap is not put in a half a second on a bottle before the actually screwcap is sealed...........long story........... Left over from the mess today, We have the 4 barrels of 2014 Terre Melange to bottle tomorrow...........The 2014 Aca Modot was great and the bottle of 2014 Terre Melange i grabbed after all our trouble was real nice.........tomorrow is another day.........5 organized and ready....... to go???????????  I love challenges so today was a fun day............I love what I do Thursday July 9, 2015 This guy from AWS is an interesting guy. He just had a baby girl on Monday and he was here today to help us out. Our screwcaps were not going on well..........log story........He was here about 90 minutes and i thought everything was fine after 30 so I will pay the price. We had other big problems I do not want to relate, but eventually we did finish the  barrels of Terre Melange and did bottle our 2014 Escuro and Petite Sirah. So I am trying a Heineken again, it helps me mellow after some espresso.............. I like the 2014 wines and it is complex. I liked the 2013 Petite Sirah more than the 2014, today bottled, remember, I have to............get organized for tomorrow 8:00: Pm: OK  I am thinking about the next few bottling days, we hope to do better. Tomorrow is 2014 Block 4 and 2014 Estate Cuvee, our two best selling wines so I am ready, I hope the bottling line is up to the task............................. Stocks are down again so I sold some ones that were down and up with a profit....... to prepare for our new Electric Nissan Forklift, here next week............It will be fun Wine is interesting........life is an adventure, I like both. Adventure in the day and wine after 5 Friday July 10, 2015 Wine is interesting........life is an adventure, I like both. Adventure in the day and wine after 5................unless we do have fun sometimes after 5. We rarely have guests here at Pat and my place. We have two bedrooms where Kate and Susie survived, I was tough at times, they may think so.......they are great kids now. So we have these two rooms in our main house where they have their same bedrooms, nothing has changed and we have a guest house, but that is an obligation. Do we rent it out...........NO........do I want to make money by renting it out when I could easily do.........NO.............Pat and I work hard during  the day so I can speak for myself, but she may agree,,,,,we like our private time like I am sure you do also............The guest house has an upstairs that is 2400 square feet. I have seen I could book a few cruises with as big a suite..............Oh I am thinking of flying again.............Never say never............Amalfi would be nice ......Guests are nice and we do have, friends, relatives for events and we have some fun times...............    We bottled 2014 Estate Cuvee and 2014 Block 4. They are both great wines but, Block 4 has this complexity and smoothness that is hard to explain.............The 2013 might be a little better right now but as you know I like young wines so I have been impressed all week to see I am convinced. 2013 is an exceptional year. I hope 2014 will be as great. So we had a lot of trouble with forklifts again today........it is Friday and I need to mellow out............Monday is My Zin, Zin and Barbera so I will end with a new statement: Wine is interesting........life is an adventure, I like both. Adventure in the day and wine after 5 unless I ??? Saturday July 11, 2015 10:30: Pm: I know some of you love dogs..........I admit I have liked my only two past dogs for a few times, most of the time they were worthless, only thinking of our next meal. Like I have said I think I was a dog in my last life but I sure don't want to like that life again. I do still think of my next meal and I will have pizza tomorrow. I have lost 6.5 pounds in the last 5 days but I have only consumed 23 carbohydrates per day and 1750 calories..........  I can only think people who like dogs feel pity for them since they are not as smart as us. I even thing some people think some dogs are smarter than us............but really because they know how to avoid us in certain ways. Tonight I am upset because I went out in my vineyard with my two kitties and we went out to the first row and we where barked by a dog in the next property so we decided to go back........seriously,,,,,,,,,,,,why do people have dogs???
	For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com Dave
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