October 28 - November 3, 2012

	Thursday November 1, 2012  Harvest is over! We brought in the last of our second crop and received the last of Bruce's wine Tuesday. We are pressing our Cabernet today and will be finished pressing second crop next week. In the next few weeks we will be gathering alcohol levels on most of the barrels and then I will have information in order to decide on blending for our 20+ wines. I had Matt check a barrel of Petite Sirah and we found we had an alcohol of about 16%. That lot will be used for blending......there are many possibilities, because My Zin, Estate Cuvee and RaiZin....all will have Petite Sirah in the blend. I am hoping to find barrels of Zinfandel with lower alcohol to blend into all those wines or lower alcohol Cabernet or Carignan will work with Estate Cuvee and Cabernet is blended into My Zin so I have plenty of possibilities. OR we may have one of those wines with higher alcohol than usual. We did find one lot of Petite Sirah that is about 15% alcohol and most of that will go into our 100% Petite Sirah wine. This higher alcohol Petite Sirah could also be blended into Escuro. My back is still giving me trouble but is slightly better. I have been on the forklift in the last few days but I am being careful. Saturday November 3, 2012  I have been through pain in my life, but not like what those people back East are going through................ My pain was first mental when my Father lost his life in 1953 and I was 10. Some times the mental pain during Harvest can consume my mind. Tonight I want to talk about physical pain. I can stand physical pain easier than mental. As long as my mind works, pain is no issue. I must admit torture would be hard. Physical pain......i am trying to remember my first physical pain. I guess it was a punch in my nose by an adversary when I was a teenager. I forgot!!, of course the first was when Vivien, my Mother spanked my rear end with a wood coat hanger............The pain from those first experiences were short lived. Bad tooth, short lived.....my first dentist who was allergic to nova-cane, short lived....my first problems with my back...a little longer, a few days. This back problem has been lingering for a week. My knee operation was painful but easy to function after a few days. It does take 6 months to fully recover though. My emergency appendectomy was painful but only for a short time. The biggest pain I have endured was when I had hernia operations. I think my first one was back over 15 years ago. I ended up having four operations until I found a good doctor about 10 years ago. Hernia operations are the hardest to function in a normal way. The problem is the pain is in the middle of the body. After a few weeks I was almost back to normal but it is definitely the most painful think I have experienced. I have seen my Mother go through open heart surgery at 90 years old and even though it is much more serious than a hernia operation, I suspect the pain is less intense because it is not in the middle of the body.   That brings me back to this back problem. Since it is still lingering after a week, I am concerned. Similar to the hernia operations, it is hard to turn around while sleeping and to a lesser extent it is affecting the functioning in the middle of my body because it is in my lower back. I went to Costco yesterday and lifted heavy things and that sure did not help my back. I am hoping things improve in the next few days. I need a vacation!!
	For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com Dave
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