March 16 - April 6, 2025 
Sunday March 16, 2025
I am feeling much better, well better than when I was in the hospital! I can walk fast in my walker so I got released on Saturday March 8 the next day after my kidney was removed. That night was hard to sleep at home but I did get some sleep compared to the hospital when the night after the surgery was not easy to sleep. I was told there would be Meds given to me at certain times so I kept waiting for those times and thus did not sleep at all.
On Sunday March 9 Bryan made a nice pizza, the best I can remember, many nice bubbles in the crust. That day I did get down stairs for a short time to clear up the messages on my computer. I then went back to bed and mostly rested the rest of the day. I was told I could take some Ibuprofen which was surprising and also Tramadol a narcotic, both helped with the pain and each day after that I felt better. I have been told it will take 6 weeks to recover but after one week now, I have very little pain even now only taking 2 Tylenol every 6 hours. I am almost back to normal, even cooking dinner and tasting high end wine compared to mine, but spitting out much of the wine. It is pretty easy to just take in a small mount of wine and swirl it aggressively in my mouth and then spit out into another glass.
I have now sold 450 shares of my Tesla stock and I have purchased more solar and put the rest into a new storage building.
Trump, it is depressing. I think he wants to go down as the best presidents ever so I hope he will let up a little since now he is seeing the polls and the Stock market plunging! I have also put the money to work into buying a lot of high end wine compared to mine and I have been really surprised my low cost wine, sealed with a screwcap (By far the best way to preserve a wine), is to my tastes better than wines selling for over $400 a bottle! With the new tariffs, I suspect the price of wine bottles and especially wine barrels will sky rocket so with the storage building, I am purchasing all the wine Barrels and wine bottles for the next year. That will only help for one year but I am hoping by then Trump will see he has made a big mistake and he will fear he will be known as the worst president ever! But I am worried, can he sort of admit he was wrong??
Monday March 24, 2025
Here it is another week. I know some of you probably want me to post more often but since this diary started in 1998 I mentioned many things that were not related to my wine making and I am sorry but I am running out of things that affected me in the past. Pat and I are also taking few vacations so nothing more to talk about trips up the Oregon Coast or trips out of the Country. I only have 7,000 miles on my 2022 Tesla Model S which was picked up in December 2021. BTW, mentioning Tesla! I just put a sticker on my Model S that says: "I BOUGHT THIS BEFORE ELON WENT CRAZY". Sure like many other Tesla drivers, I am concerned that someone may vandalize my Tesla.
OK, back to wine! Today and for the next week or so we are racking our new 2024 wines. Also we have only one 2023 wine left, our first 2023 Super Tuscan which will be bottled in July. Tomorrow when racking that wine, Jose will collect a half bottle so I can taste compared to a few Super Tuscan style wines from other producers one in Sonoma County and one in Napa along with one from Italy. It will be fun!
Thursday April 3, 2025
Well my oncologist said all the cancer was removed but he wants me to have some new drug which requires every three weeks of an injection. It is just precautionary to make sure the cancer does not spread so I want to do it. I am not happy about driving to Santa Rosa every 3 weeks but I will survive.........
I tasted several Super Tuscan wines over the last week and some were very nice and a few were disappointing. I tasted them compared to our 2023 and 2024 Super Tuscan wines. The 2023 will be bottled in July and the 2024 to be bottled next January. Our wines were young compared to the wines I tasted from Italy and California but they were just as good. There was one wine from Seghesio which was a really great wine. Also from BCellars a blend of Sonoma County and Napa grapes was also great. Neither wine mentioned what the actual blend of grapes were in the bottle, but both did say they were composed of primarily Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon in a Super Tuscan Style.
I may have said this before! There may be no one out there who has been investing in stocks longer than I! My mother gave me for my 19th birthday, May 3 1962, 4 shares of Bethlehem Steel. That gave me the idea to start trading. Here is an interesting quote..........: "Bethlehem Steel Corporation, a major American steel company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was a symbol of American manufacturing, but its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century became an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership."..........Trump wants to bring back manufacturing companies like that. Good luck.
So for now 63 years I have been trading and investing in the stock market. I have seen many crashes in my time and this may be the largest eventually. I doubt I can see the bottom but after all my experience and great timing (quitting my job in 1972 at the age of 29, surviving by playing the market and of course finally starting this winery at the age of 51) I will START BUYING on Tuesday April 8 and continue for the next week or two when the market may continue to head down. I will buy TSLA, NVDA, AMZN, GOOGL and maybe BIDU, the only search engine company in China. I may not put a great deal of my profits lately to work, but maybe as much as $50,000, a small amount compared to my profits still in Tesla Stock of of 1 mill and remember I have sold 450 shares, a gross of $182,250 and that was a profit if $175,000. I did have to pay taxes of $50,000 though. I still have 4,500 shares. Tesla is more than a car company. I just hope Elon wakes up and decide to get back to work running all his companies. I doubt I will ever admire him as a person again though.
If you want to be in the stock market, you have to have the guts to buy when no one else is and sell when everyone else wants to buy. I agree it is not easy sometimes, but first you have to believe that 6 months to a year and longer the company you are purchasing will do well.
BTW, I tried our new DC Fusion last night and I can say it is the best wine I have produced that is only 13.9% alcohol. It has nice fruit and actually is very smooth and balanced. It is a blend of many wines we made during the harvest last year. First we made a very low alcohol blend of some of the first grapes harvested on August 20, 2024, one ton of Sagrantino, Grenache and Petite Sirah, only 12.3 alcohol, about 50 cases. Then we blended in 2 barrels of Escuro which was equal amounts of Aglianico, Tannat, Alvarelhao, Souzao and Lagrein. And finally we added two barrels Grenache and another two barrels of Syrah from a vineyard we are leasing. In all, we should have about 200 cases. We are offering it on Futures right now for only $22, $18.70 to Club members.
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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