Weeks 7-8
February 9, 2003 to February 22, 2003 

	Friday February 14, 2003 We, jointly (Brad, Pat, Steve and I) just sent an invitation to a bunch of you to our first BIG open house. I hope many of you can attend. It will surely be fun. We sent only e-mails, because that was easier on us. (It is hard to convince teen-agers to stuff envelopes) . If you have any friends who would be happy to attend, bring them along. To see a copy of the letter we sent, follow the Open House link from our home page.  Wednesday February 19, 2003 Pat says I have a lot to say. She had to motivate me. I have trouble this time of year talking about our happenings since there is not much that happens that would inspire you. I'll try.  Last week we had a meeting here of the Russian River Wine Road. Wineries were encouraged to come and hear how some of us conduct futures sales. I was the last speaker and by that time all was said. The other three wineries were Sebastopol Wines, Davis Bynum and Joeseph Swann. I found out that these three wineries only sell a few hundred cases of Futures a year. We sell 3000. These wineries restrict futures to whole case lots except for Swann where Rod, (part owner) will allow 6 bottle lots. We as most of you know, encourage mixing and matching as little as one bottle of each wine we make. I think you will see many more wineries selling Futures.  Remember the Russian River Barrel Tasting will be the first weekend of March each year. This year that is March 1st and 2nd. I will make sure you will be entertained with the latest in Rock Videos, including at 10 Am Sat "The Only Monterey Pop Festival 1967" where Jannis Jopplin is rumored to have made her first live performance. Classic!!  I will post the schedule soon.  I need to briefly report on the trials we have done to finish off the 2002 Dry Sauv Blanc. If you remember back on Feb 6 I talked about lowering the acid in our sauv blanc. That required that we add--potassium (def: a silvery white metallic element that oxidizes rapidly in the air and whose compounds are used as fertilizer and in special hard glasses) carbonate (def: to charge or impregnate with carbon dioxide: carbonated drinks.) Scary, isn't it? So we listened to UC Davis who should know and added Potassium carbonate in small amounts to our Dry Sauv Blanc for a taste analysis. So far the results are up in the air!  My next report will involve my talks with Sabate and also what we have learned about screw caps. Don't miss it!  I think Pat did motivate me. I need to do better.  News to come:  -Brendan  -Sabate  -Open House  -My new projector  -Video Schedule for Barrel Thursday February 20, 2003 We have  decided to not raise our prices at this time. We are doing well, but we have made 5000 cases. We can sell 3500 cases in "futures", but I want to keep my prices down, so I don't want to sell much at retail. Therefore we may decide to sell some wine to a few distributors out of state. That will mean lower prices to us so I would rather see if we can sell more "futures" at these present prices. We have been contacted by a past customer from Napa County who has moved to Vermont and started a restaurant and want our wine. We have sent a few bottles of wine to two distributors in Vermont to see if they are interested in carrying our wine. As most of you know many wineries of our size do sell a great deal of their wine out of state.  I mentioned Brendan yesterday, because he is off at the WineBrats again. I need to continue to make 5000 cases and then find a way to sell it in order to supply Brendan with enough money to survive. The problem I have is that I have two employees now that are on a salary: Caterino and Steve. Steve is working at least 5 hours a day and Caterino puts in 8. I need to find work for Brendan. I hope to explain more on this subject next time.
	Dave
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