High 88 Low 44  (The high will be from yesterday and the low from the current morning.) 

No fog this morning and the sun feels warm already. 

Pat and I went off shopping for office furniture and are now totally confused. We will probably go out tomorrow with some new info from the dimensions of our room. 

Yesterday atleast 50 people came by to taste and we are expecting that many again today. 

September 6, 1999

High 98 Low 46

As you can see we had over a 50 degree range in our tempertures in the last two days---ideal for ripening. The high for today that I will register for tomorrow was 96. We may be going with Lambert Bridge on Friday. 

Great news!! Brendan called this evening and will be showing up tomorrow to officially work for us full time. I will put him right to work since we have to load up 440 cases of wine for my distributor by 10am in the morning. 

Pat, Kate, Susie and I went off to shop for office furniture again today. We are a little less confused---But the big event of the day was our experience and involvement in attending the showing of "The sixth Sense" at our local theater. The movie kept us talking all day. Susie it seems had figured out the plot right from the beginning---so we kept on saying she had the Sixth Sense. If any of you know Susie, it could very well be true. 

September 7, 1999

High 96, Low 50.  High today 90.

Dennis (who will be doing most of our construction on the new building), Ken (who is doing the construction on our computer network hook-up), Ted (our electrician), Brendan my assistant and Steve my vineyard manager were all here to converse with me today about their various responsibilties. It was a very long and detailed day that would take hours to relate at this time. I will try to give some brief details about some important matters. Dennis started working with his newly-acquired backhoe and cleared a section for us to move our equipment around on one side of the vineyard and he also cut a hole in the sheetrock in our office to determine how the computers for the network and the electricity needed should be run around the room. Ted came to hang some new lights in the winery and also do many other various tasks. Brendan made his first official appearance as my assistant winemaker this year. He did sugar tests on the Lane Zinfandel (about 20 brix), our third block Estate Zinfandel (21.8), the Lambert Bridge section of Sauvignon Blanc (23.4), and our section of Sauvignon Blanc (22.6). If you just looked at the sugar readings on the Sauvignon Blanc, we should be harvesting immediately. But the pH's were around 3.05 and the T.A.'s about .9. The Zinfandel numbers were also very high in acid. So, as usual, this is a very confusing time on when to harvest for the first time of the season. Also, we made a spur of the moment decision to enter our ZP2C in the Sonoma County Harvest Fair. 

September 8, 1999

Low this morning 56; high this afternoon 88

With all the activity going on yesterday, I forgot to mention that 444 cases of wine were picked up my distributor yesterday morning as well. Just the moving, stacking and re-stacking of cases to prepare for this pick up took me a total of 4-1/2 hours from 7:00 to 11:30 a.m. As I mentioned before, 300 cases of Neighbors Zin, 84 cases of Estate Cuvee, and 60 cases of Neighbors' Cuvee are to be distributed at this time. These wines should start showing up at various places in California later this month or next, with the most probable locations being the California retailers and restaurants currently listed on our site. We'll try to update those listings as soon as we get the information from our distributor. Since I was rudely interrupted by two dueling cats and was able to get only 3 hours' sleep last night, I am writing this early this evening so I can try to catch up a little tonight. 

September 9, 1999

Low this morning 56; high this afternoon 83

Things slowed down a little today. We installed a 6-inch pipe, 3 feet deep, into our pond giving us the capabilities of pulling out 150,000 gallons of water. The County is requiring us to have 20,000 gallons of water available for fire protection. This new pipe installation obviously gives us enough water to protect our property, as well as many other adjacent properties from potential fires. 

In the office today, we installed 8 separate yellow wires called Cat Five. Within each of the 8 yellow shields, I see an additional eight color-coded telephone wires which will give us the possibility of connecting many phone lines through our network. I'm still learning about this networking thing and plan on sitting down with Ken, the installation man, to learn more tomorrow. Jim, the computer supplier, came by today. He is very knowledgeable and is still confusing me about all the possibilities that exist with regard to networking.. His prices seem to be competitive with HP and Dell so I am definitely using him to provide us with our two new computers and for updating our two existing computers. This whole office thing may be ready within two weeks. Of course, this means I will have to coordinate the office construction with the possibility of harvesting at the same time. 

Tomorrow will be a big day for sugar testing. Brendan will go out into the vineyard and take many samples and we should have some more information on when we may begin harvest. Also, I am going to put Brendan to work tomorrow - if I can remember - to post his first message of the season in this diary. It should be a vast improvement over my recent ramblings. 

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