David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery Winemaker's Diary

Week 47
November 19 to November 25, 2000 


Tuesday November 21  2000

Well, it has been dry for a few days so I sent Brendan out to see if he could come back with some more Late harvest Sauv Blanc. He did! Enough for another 100 half bottles. The sugar is close to 50% which should bring our average up to 43% overall. The residual sugar should be well over 20% after the completion of the fermentation. Some of you are wondering how I received more grapes for this wine this year. Of course it is all in the weather. We have had earlier rain and dry periods in between. If it does not rain earlier, like last year, botrytis will not form and if it rains a lot and does not dry out for several days, like last year, the grapes will fall off the vines. We had very little crop last year and very little sugar. This year the quality is very good, even though we could of had a higher yield with more rain earlier--say about September 1st. Of course that rain early would have decreased the quality of our dry wines. 

I have finished allotting the 170 barrels to our 11 different red wines. Later tonight I will give you a few comments on the wines and the probable final percentages. 

10:00 PM    OK after all this Supreme Court stuff I have to step above all this political crap and give you my opinion about what I think about my 2000 wines. But first I can't resist to say that Gore dose not have enough time to convince his supporters to give up their Thanksgiving, First day of Xmas shopping and Football Sunday to complete this recount. I still stand by my prediction that Bush will be our President. I am not crazy about Gore, but I want our President to be involved in this controversy and he seems to be more interested. Being adamantly interested in politics, I was fascinated about how many questions that  these Supreme Court Justices asked and thus they put both sides on the defensive. I was glued to the TV. (Pat was Not) I have heard that only one of our candidates actually listened to these interesting Supreme Court proceedings. Pat says I should not get into politics, so I hope you friends buy my wine because of my blending abilities, and not my political interests. 

I think the 2000 Petite Sirah and Aca Modot are possibly our best. The Block 4 is good again, but maybe not as great as 99. The Neighbors' Zin could be better than our Estate Zin again. The Pinot will be more better and more balanced than 99. The Carignan will be more like 98 than 99. The Cab Franc has less color, but more character. Our Sirah can compete with any in the state and the Mourvedre is the most surprising and could be the most complex. Here are the probable percentages for our wines in 2000: 

  • Aca Modot: 54% Cab Sauv, 17% Cab Franc, 12% Barbera, 10% Merlot, 4% Petite Verdot and 3 % Malbec (345 Cases)
  • Neighbors' Zin: 76% Zin, 14% Cab Sauv., 5% Mourvedre, 3% Petite Sirah, 2% Carignan  (345 Cases)
  • Estate Zin: 76% Zinfandel, 10% Petite Sirah, 11% Cabernet and 3% Barbera (790 Cases)
  • Estate Cuvee: 33% Zin, 30% Cab, 25% Carignan, 12% Petite Sirah (670 Cases)
  • Petite Sirah: 77% Petite Sirah, 13% Cabernet Franc, 10% Zin (345 Cases) 
  • Carignan: 77% Carignan, 18% Cabernet, 5% Zin (270 Cases)
  • Syrah: 75% Syrah, 15% Barbera, 10% Cab Franc (220 Cases) 
  • Cab Franc: 83% Cab Franc, 9% Zin, 6% Cabernet, 2% Barbera (345 Cases )
  • Mourvedre: 75% Mourvedre, 10% Barbera, 6% Syrah, 4% Cab Franc, 3% Cabernet, 2% Petite Sirah (270 Cases) 
  • Pinot: 83% Pinot, 17% Syrah (75 Cases)


 

 
 

Dave

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