January 1
- January 27, 2024 
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Look at last week if interested, I was tasting very high end Cabs compared to my 2017. The final results were I liked mine, of course take it with a grain of salt, I also liked two other cabs but the Ramey and the Opus One were a disappointment, send me an email and I can tell you more.........
Now tonight I was tasting samples from our newly racked 2023 vintage, barrel samples and I was impressed, so it looks like a great year............now I want to taste samples from the 2022 16 month aged wines that we will be bottling in 2 weeks. We are only waiting for our bottles...........
Thursday, January 4, 2024
Big problems with the delivery today of the white Bottles. We only have 121 cases of 2023 Luminaire to bottle but the cases delivered today were without inserts!! To make this clear........The bottles today delivered were loose in the case, banging around......we will have to see if some are broken............
That means we have to find inserts from our shipping and tasting room to make sure our employees save all inserts.........
I asked the company, and they had no input and they could not supply the missing inserts........., but they said they will give me a $4.50 discount which means a lot compared to the Green Glass at $7.40 a case.
We have most of our Glass coming tomorrow, 2352 cases of green............we obviously will make sure the trucking company has their act together...........please have inserts!!
Friday, January 5, 2024
The glass was delivered today and the inserts were in the boxes so that is good since there were 2352 cases of green glass delivered today.
If you kept up with my audit by the CDTFA, sales tax dept of California, there is a problem with the penalty of $341.26 charged on my 3rd quarter of 2023. I have been charged twice for $341.26..........I filed an amended return and the CDTFA thought it was an original return, it is confusing!! The bottom line is I have had the CDTFA attach my bank account with no warning.......it is complicated.................................
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Again too much in my mind, I never want to retire!! That said, this CDTFA audit had kept in my mind last night at bed time and I thought about how I get the data to convince I have the right data and they will agree with me. That means will they agree when I give them proof of receipts and agree we can go forward??
OK there is now 2 accounts. They found out I started a corporation in 2002 so they are moving everything from the past to the new corporation account SO hopefully EVERYTHING is on hold?? I did not get any sleep last night worrying about this and many other things with the winery so I am fading!!...........................
Friday, January 12, 2024
Again too much in my mind........I am spending most of my time concerned about CDTFA, the state of California sales tax audit. As you know they are trying to see if I owe more from 12 quarters in the past. I will give more info when I know more!!
We have an event this week end but I will be looking at NFL............
We are ready to bottle our 2022 16 Month Aged wine next week so I will have more when we start.
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
We are having some problems setting up the bottling line, nothing important, just takes time so we will start bottling next Monday. The Italiano and Aglianico will be first off the line. As you may know I taste the newly bottled wines the first evening. I usually taste compared to last years vintage so it will be fun.......
Thursday, January 18, 2024
OK, I am not happy about Trump, so big deal?, some people think about making more money so I can see why they vote for him. He has lowered taxes, but sometimes some, I am thinking of the less wealthy than I, need more money and lower taxes does help, besides lower taxes I want someone who will be smart and run our country correctly, what ever that means, asking advisors, at least listening........sorry.........
I don't need to be distracted...........I have the audit, with impending bottling (Big Problems already setting up for next week!!!!), video: NFL, Tennis, should I go on, oh but distractions, escapes, maybe some other video?..................Have you seen "Beef" the one that won several Emmy awards?, it is intense so Pat and I are up soon to see more!!.........Tomorrow, another day? I have Tesla coming in to do more solar and a nice customer coming in tomorrow to help with the CDTFA!!
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
For the last several days I have tried to see what I have to do with the CDTFA!! It is complicated but now I have been concentrating on IRS, so yes different from the State of California which is CDTFA sales tax.
So also more important, is our impending bottling of our 2022 16 Month barrel aged wines with most reds at 30% new oak, which means I pay for 80 barrels a year and the cost is about $60,000. That sounds like a lot but barrels can be used for 4 years and still give out some oak so I figure our cost for the red wines we make!! For Barrels is only $12 a case but gee, we can use the barrels for 4 years so maybe 30 cents a bottle?..........
Tomorrow is another day, hopefully we can start bottling. We found a problem with the bottles..........too much on my mind.........time for more "Beef" the great series......................
Thursday, January 25, 2024
The 2300 cases of the latest shipment of bottles were inconsistent so our Screwcap machine was either sealing too tight or too loose depending on the bottle. They are going to pick up the bad glass tomorrow and another supplier is going to send us some new glass. We hope we can start again Monday or Tuesday, it has been very frustrating!!!
Saturday, January 27, 2024
I have calmed down a little now!! The bad inconsistent bottles are gone, all 2352 cases, they were picked up yesterday. We have a new shipment of 2352 cases coming Monday and we will start bottling again on Tuesday. We have never had this happen before. Sure we have had other problems especially with our bottling line, like the filler and labeler and mostly the screwcap machine, but it is usually not the bottles being inconsistent from one to the other. I was told it may be wise to switch to a USA manufacturer, but that will cost 10% more. It seems most of the glass is coming from China or Mexico or somewhere else out of the good old USA! We do have to raise our prices anyway since all our suppliers and shippers including FedEX has raised their prices by over 10%. By buying domestic glass it sure would relieve a lot of our problems? Who knows, maybe domestic glass may cause problems also. I am getting a sample of Owens Illinois glass, the largest manufacturer, and I will check it out.
That said this weekend I am back working on Taxes, both the CDTFA sales tax audit and our personal and winery income taxes!!
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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