March 3 -
March 16, 2024 
Jose was injured and ill, he said nothing that happened here, but he could not come for our Barrel tasting event............
That meant I had to step up and present barrel tasting to a lot of customers. We were so happy that we had so many new people here this last weekend for the big Barrel Tasting. I would have to hear the actual account, I think we had way over 400 people here, by just looking around. There was never a time when at least 20 people were in the winery and I know at times there had to be more than 50.
Our sales were good also so we are happy!!
CDTFA, nothing new............
TSLA nothing changed much in the last month.........
Raiders, a lot of talk, I can always hope!
Music, wow we had some great sounds out in the winery........
I am trying to recover for standing in for Jose, and I do mean standing!! My legs and back are hurting, but I can stand pain......
Tomorrow is another day.......
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
So tomorrow is a big day for my customer Julian and I who has worked for several companies to advise about CDTFA, the State of California who is auditing me. I pay so much to the County of Sonoma for Property taxes and other and they need more? OK, Julian and I are ready for the 2 auditors coming in tomorrow afternoon in our Winery so it will be interesting!! We have to convince the 2 auditors that we have done all the work to convince them we are right. I do think I owe them about $24,000 more than what I reported. CDTFA, Trevor and Cathy his assistant are coming in here at 2pm tomorrow and hopefully Julian and I can convince them we are right?? Julian and Pat told me to keep my mouth shut, I am Sicilian, I will try?
Saturday, March 10, 2024
I have to taste our Sauvignon Blanc Blend in 3 different oak! So Pat and I love oak lately, I see now all the high end Whites use French Oak so we did an experiment with 3 different oak barrels which included Hungarian so I need to try them tomorrow night. Pat already said she liked the Hungarian because it was smoother, BUT she did say it was not as good as the one I did in 2021 with Demptos French so it will be interesting for me to taste blind, 2 French and the Hungarian in 100% Oak.........
Sunday, March 10, 2024
I have two things to clear up. First of all I did taste the 3 Sauvignon Blanc Blend barrels and found they tasted similar so we will bottle the blend in July which is 75% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Chardonnay.
Now to mention the time with Trevor and Cathy from the CDTFA, California sales tax audit. Julian my customer was here also. We had worked out what we thought was the right total I owe and they seemed to agree with most of it so now I wait to see what the final ruling is from Trevor and Cathy. We can appeal if we do not agree.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
I am sure I have mentioned topping? We need to do topping every 2 to 3 weeks and will top off our 2023 wine barrels tomorrow. Yes we have to make sure our barrels are topped off because there is evaporation!! We use sometimes bottles of wine of the same variety or barrels of Zp2c, the little cloudy wine recollected from the bottom of the barrel when we rack. We lose maybe 1/2 gallon every few weeks from evaporation so we have to go back and use some wine to top off SO the wine at the top of the barrel left exposed to the air does not cause too much oxidation. A little Oxidation is good when the wine is young so the concentration can develop. When the wine is finally finished and bottled, oxidation takes many years to cause a wine to be TOO old and not desirable to some. Sure some wines that have enough acid can last for over 30 years and that is what I achieve and of course Screwcaps can preserve the wine longer than corks.........oh but corks after now 400+ years are still the most used for premium wines. I disagree so I choose Screwcaps because I want my wine to live longer than I.................
Friday, March 15, 2024
OK, news regarding the audit by the CDTFA of my sales tax!! They have agreed to use my analysis that I owe about 24K plus interest of $3,000 plus so it is over and I can get back to making wine.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
I tried 3 2003 Bordeaux wines to night compared to my 2009 Cab. Mine had some better fruit and finish but all of them had good acid blend to last as long. I really like still testing Bordeaux wines since they were what got me into this adventure way back in 1969.........Look it up in my diary.........
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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