Weeks 34 - 35
August 31, 2003 to September 13, 2003 

	Friday September 5, 2003 We just finished HARVESTING!! I'll make this short since I can't see too well.  Yesterday I decided to have my right eye done again. Yes, I had a laser touch my eye even though I have a lot more respect about lasers after my leg operation. Two years ago I had Lasik completed on both my eyes. My vision used to be 20/400 in both eyes and I was corrected to 20/20 and 20/40 in my right eye with some astigmatism remaining. Yesterday I had the astigmatism corrected and I will now be able to see 20/20, the same as my left eye. There is some irritation that feels like a scratch. I hear this is normal. I'll have to have some wine soon.  Now back to the Harvest. We had to move fast, because birds were attacking our first crop of Peloursin in the front part of our vineyard. We knew the sugar was high enough, but we also knew there was very little crop. We ended up with 23.2 Brix, 3.35 Ph and only 600 pounds and so we ran it through our little sampling crusher. Thus we could not de-stem the bunches and many of the berries were not broken. Our plan is to keep this fermentation going until we harvest some syrah, which should be no more than two weeks away. By leaving the berries in tact, the fermentation will proceed slowly. That way we can press the two together. These two varietals will end up in our 2003 Terre Melange. I better go back to resting my eye.  Friday September 12, 2003 Until yesterday our weather has been cool. Yesterday our high was 103 and today it could get hotter. Tuesday, Brendan did a sugar test on several areas of the vineyard and found that our zin, syrah and Sauv Blanc are still about 22 Brix. I took a walk around the vineyard with Catarino today and was not surprised to see many zinfandel bunches that looked and tasted ready. I will send Brendan out for a new test tomorrow and again Tuesday. We have three pickers coming in on Tuesday and they along with Catarino will be ready to harvest for 6 weeks. I will be paying them a guaranteed salary for the 6 weeks, but they will only be harvesting about half the days. My guess is that we will be harvesting some fruit as early as Wednesday, but surely by Friday of next week.  Kate, our 18 year old daughter is heading off for Cal Poly tomorrow to study Architectural Engineering. She will drive her car (loaded with goodies) down to the central coast, a 5+ hour trip from here. I, Pat, Susie and two friends will also drive down with our car to help her move in to the dorm. We will leave Kate Sunday morning and head back to make sure I can watch the Raider game at 1:00 Pm. The game is blacked out, but I can always go up to Cloverdale to see the game over a friends house. Obviously, the Raider game is the most important thing on the weekend. Kate is as big a Raider fan as I am, so she is planning to see the game in her dorm room.  Brendan and Steve will be here tomorrow to serve wine and accommodate any of you who would like to pick up your futures order. The wine in the box thing never worked out for our 2002 Zp2C, but Steve and Brendan hope to bag up their homemade wine today or tomorrow.  3:00 Pm Brendan wants to make a Syrah. As some of you know I am not a big fan of Syrah. But since Brendan has a chance to purchase some Dry Creek Syrah, he will have complete responsibility to produce and bottle his wine. Today we put Brendan's Syrah for purchase on our web site. He is not bonded and he dose not have the right to purchase the grapes, so I will be legally responsible. He must use my equipment to produce the wine. He will receive half of the profits from the sale. Of course I will have my input and make sure the quality is good.  Tonight we should have some pictures to upload. Some will be of Susie's new cat Leroy.
	Dave
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