January 1- March 15, 2025 
Tuesday January 7, 2025
Happy New Year!
We have to wait until after the Winter Wineland event before we can bottle our 2023 16 month wines and our new 2024 white wines. I will taste all those wines when we start bottling the week of January 20.
Thursday January 16, 2025
We are still scheduled for the Winter Wineland event this weekend so in the mean time I have been tasting some high end Cabernet wines and I still have to admit, our 2021 Cab has more fruit and a better balance. The other 3 wines I tried have come together more on day 3 of tasting, but still have more harshness and less finish. I usually taste wines over 5 days so time will tell. Also I always taste blind.......
I have a problem with an arrangement I might have mentioned before. We have harvested some grapes from a vineyard in Alexander Valley not from the vineyard in 2020 when that Cab won a gold medal, but from a vineyard that is owned by my accountant. He does not have time to arrange for growing or selling potential grapes or wine. We made some wine from the vineyard from the 2023 harvest and bottled the wine for him without labels. The vineyard was not taken care of well that year so the wine was not up to par as far as I was concerned. This past vintage, 2024, was looked over by Catarino most of the time but still had some lapses and miscommunication between Catarino and Dan, the owner. Obviously Dan has more important things to arrange like all the tax returns he is responsible for in more than one state. Dan said he wanted to donate these 2024 grapes to me so I could not refuse but Pat thinks I am taking on too much responsibility especially with my back problems.
But, here I was still making the decision to harvest Syrah, Grenache and Cabernet grapes and making wine that I have no place to sell. The quality is much better this year but what can I do with it?? After thinking about it for two months now, I have decided to try to sell the wine at a very low price and actually blend all the wine together and sell under our new Dry Creek Road second label. I have in bedded a copy of the label below. I may change my mind and sell it under our DC Fusion label. Time will tell but I can say it will be the lowest cost wine we have ever sold, especially since my cost is so low.......
Friday January 24, 2025
We have set up the bottling line and today we decided to try to bottle our 2023 16 Month aged Petit Verdot, Estate Cuvee and Sangiovese. We have a mechanic coming from the bottling equipment company to make sure the screwcap machine is working correctly. Every time we are sent bottles they are always slightly different.
After tasting many wines from the barrel, I have also made up my mind about bottling our new Super Tuscan. I had already decided to make one from the 2024 Vintage but now I have decided to make one from some of the wine from the 2023 Vintage. It will consist of one barrel of Sangiovese, one barrel of Aglianico and one barrel of Aca Modot. The Ava Modot for this year is a blend of 29% Cabernet Franc, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 21% Pet Verdot and 7% Malbec. That will make the blend, 33% Sangiovese, 33% Aglianico and the rest Bordeaux varietals. I will put the percentages on the label.
Also we have finalized the name of the wine, it will be called Super Tuscan Style. We already have a wine called Italiano Style. I wanted to call it just Italiano, but the feds said It might get confusing, because it would imply I bought wine from Italy. To me that made no sense because it says right on the bottle that it was Grown, Produced and bottled by us. Oh, well I can't argue with the government! By putting Style in the name the TTB, thinks it is more clear so that is why I need to put Style in the name of my Super Tuscan. Also I have decided to age the wine for another 6 months and bottle it in July. We have the 75 cases for sale.
Friday January 31, 2025
I have been having fun tasting the new bottled 2023 16 Month aged wines. So far the ones that have surprised me for the better has been the Nebbiolo, Cabernet and Aglianico. Tuesday we bottled 47 cases of our 2023 Nebbiolo and I opened a high end Barolo (100% Nebbiolo) to compare. The first night the Italian one was more assertive as expected with great intensity up front and my Nebbiolo was less intense so I was dissapointed. As far as I know, no one in California has produced a great Nebbiolo in the style of Italian ones. On Wednesday and last night I tasted the two wines again, of course always blind and was amazed that the one day of some air made our 2023 Nebbiolo more intense and on the par of the Barolo. I am so happy since I have a lot of Nebbiolo vines in our vineyard ready to produce grapes this year and more in the next years. I now know some wines are in bottle shock just after bottling.
Bottle shock? Gee I opened my 2023 Cabernet last night after it was bottled just 10 hours before and it was amazing. I compared it to a 2021 Quintessa from Napa ($250) and I was shocked to find our wine this first night showed better. The most intense and balanced wine so far is our 2023 Aglianico, wow! The most intense and complex wine. I put a barrel in our new Super Tuscan Style wine, along with our Bordeaux blend Aca Modot and a barrel of Sangiovese, the latter two also wonderful full wines. The Super Tuscan will be in two thirds of French oak until July when it will be bottled, can't wait!!
Monday February 10, 2025
I have been tasting blind some high end wines, some blends with Bordeaux varietals and some 100% Cabernet. In the blind taste of 6 wines two were my wines, a 2018 Aca Modot and a 2021 Cabernet. The Cabernet had the most fruit upfront and a 2021 Redigaffi Toscana at $260 was 100% Merlot and reminded me of Petrus I had bought way back in the 1970's. It showed no fruit and was very tannic and should last another 20 years. In the 6 wines was a 2018 BV Private Reserve which was real nice the first night. All 6 wines were really nice and last night I blended all 6 in a glass to enjoy the Eagles win the Super Bowl. My two wines were just as enjoyable as the other 6 wines which had a combined rating of 98 and an average price of $200......fun.
Friday February 21, 2025
Not much is happening this time of year and also after all these years I am finding less new to say. I find most of my time is spent preparing for Doctors appointments and thus almost all my mileage on my Model S is for those appointments. We are 30 miles away from most doctors and some appointments just 15 miles away in Healdsburg where I have blood tests or see my Primary Doctor. Yesterday I had to head off to supply a urine sample at the Healdsburg Hospital so on into town. Today I head off to Healdsburg again to have my eyes tested. With all the problems I had last year, like my two falls and thus the fractures in my back, there were scans that picked up another big problem!
I seems I have a mass in my left kidney which has been growing slowly for sometime. By looking at the scan, the urology doctor believes it is cancerous. It is amazing they can detect that without doing an autopsy! Anyway on March 7 there is a scheduled surgery to remove my kidney. I was told these days the surgery is much less evasive and it is called Laparoscopic or Robotic Nephrectomy – A minimally invasive approach using small incisions and a camera to guide the surgery and then a little larger incision to pull out the kidney. I am concerned because any operation under General anesthesia is somewhat concerning at my age, almost 82. The good news as most of you know a person can survive just fine with one kidney, but I plan to be much more careful in what I put in my body from now on!
Now with a higher note, our Barrel Tasting weekend is coming up. First of all we are having February 28 as an event to show off several barrel samples which will not be served to the general public on March 1 and 2. Those wines will include our 22 month aged 2023 Super Tuscan, 2024 Merlot, 2024 Sagrantino and 2024 French Oak Chardonnay. On the weekend we will have on the floor, 2024 wines consisting of Dave's Cuvee, Zinfandel (Both for special sale prices) and 2024 Block 4, Escuro, Cabernet, Aca Modot, Italiano and 2024 Super Tuscan. I hope some of you can attend. Next week, I will put up a pdf of the form in case any of you would like to order.
Wednesday March 5, 2025
Our sales for the Barrel tasting event were better than we thought. Below is a picture of our order form for last weekend in case someone would like to purchase some 2024 Futures. Just send pat@coffaro.com an email if interested. The new 2024 Super Tuscan sold well. And the 2023 Super Tuscan will be bottled in July. On last Friday we also had barrel samples of our 2024 French Oaked Chardonnay and our first Sagrantino, both of the wines sold well. We will actually do a barrel experiment with the 2024 Sagrantino by aging the wine in 3 different French Oak barrels. I will have more about that later on.
As planned on Friday March 7 I will have surgery to remove one of my Kidneys. I will let everyone know how it goes when I get home next week.
Friday, March 7, 2025
Brad here. As Dave noted above, he was having surgery today to remove a kidney. I've just heard from Pat. The surgery was successful. Everything went well and he is now in recovery.
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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