September
25 - October 15, 2022 
Tuesday September 27, 2022
So many things happening, a lot about the Generator which has not worked for 1.5 years, maybe Brad? could do a good job of explaining some of it, it would take me hours, please Brad........
OK, well wine is easier to explain. We still have Viognier Grapes out there starting to ferment for late harvest. We want the finished wine at 11% alcohol and 20 residual sugar left, it will be fun............? We are sprinkling water on these vines in the afternoon, no need in the morning, all the grapes are wet from the nice fog coming in. We are hoping for 40% sugar at harvest, but I think we will not get there unless we hope for another month? Long story, to what to do next, but we do have half a ton at 35 sugar now............?? What should I do??
Wednesday September 28, 2022
I am now going to try to explain the problems with my generator........
After the big fire 3 years ago when we had to evacuate and we could not work on wine, I decided to buy a generator to back up our winery and guesthouse. At that time our internet and water was controlled over across the way through the guesthouse electrical. So when the power went off we had no water anywhere on the property and we did not have internet. Our Tesla solar and 2 Powerwalls backed up our residence but like I said we did not have water or internet. Right after that I did get a solar array to backup our water and we set up a small battery back up for our internet BUT we still did not have electricity for our winery.
I hired a local company to install a large Generac industrial generator and it was up and going in February, 2001 at a cost of $52,000. Immediately we started having problems. The generator at times would not start up during an outage and when an automatic test was to come on on Wednesday morning. Since then there has been at least 6 different so called techs come out to find the problem. Every tech left with the generator working and they said the problem was solved. Since then we have had 24 times when the power has gone off and only a few times has the generator come on.
Interesting a few of the techs said there could be an issue with the flywheel but left saying the problem was solved. In July of this year I decided to pursue a battery backup for the winery at an additional cost of $84,000, we must have backup for the winery! That battery installation should be in by November this year. I asked that company to recommend a new tech from a large Generac certified company. That company is West Coast Energy Systems out of Stockton about 150 miles away.
Jeremy at Energy Systems set up my account and said he needed my credit card ONLY if it was not under warranty. Mario showed up and spent and hour or so and said he found the problem, the flow was set too low. Since then other techs and the propane company have said the flow is fine. The next thing I found out, I was charged $921.85 by Energy Systems. They said since it was a propane flow problem, it was not covered under warranty. For now 3 months I have been fighting with them to reimburse my credit card. They are insisting Mario did a great job and they will not come out without charging me again.
2 weeks ago I tracked down James the original installer whose company is out of business and he sent out Chuck yesterday. Over all these months techs and our employees including myself has heard a grinding noise when we have tried to start the generator on manual. The noise is random. Catarino and Chuck yesterday started it several times until Chuck heard the grinding noise. Then he suspected the flywheel and opened up that section of the generator and took a picture to show me THAT a third of the flywheel had missing teeth.
Chuck said it is under warranty and ordered a new starter and flywheel. I sure hope it works after the parts are installed AND I sure hope my credit card company stands up for me and I am reimbursed $921.85 from West Coast Energy Systems out of Stockton California..............
8........OK, if you are still with me, I have an other subject
Still a harvest of grapes to do!! OK I have said we still have a lot of fruit out there I forgot about, Viognier. we may have had at harvest, before the grapes starting swiveling up, maybe 1.3 tons, enough to make a still wine at 14% alcohol, 100 cases. Now that the fruit has been out there, We could make about 75 cases of dry wine, but I want to make a sweet wine..........a lot of sugar in the wine and high acid. Have you heard of sweet and sour, that is what this wine will be like!!
it will be complicated to achieve that balance, I will have to add fresh juice.........more to come..........
Friday September 30, 2022
Catarino informed me that the Viognier was starting to break down and even had some nice noble rot on the bunches SO today we decided to harvest 3/4 of the fruit. We left a quarter on the vines to use later. We destemmed today and will leave the grapes on the skins and press tomorrow morning. We hope to have at least 35 sugar. We will ferment to 10% alcohol and then harvest the rest of the grapes to collect fresh juice. We will add enough of the fresh juice to make the residual to 25%. We will then have to stop the fermentation by adding a few things. I will explain more as the process goes on.
Monday October 3, 2022
Good news!! We won 2 Golds at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair. Our 2020 Block 4 and our 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon won golds. We have not heard if we won metals on our Block 6, Luminaire, Petite Sirah and Carignan. We should find out this week.
Our harvest of Viognier is fermenting now. The sugar came in around 30% which was lower than we expected. There is still about 400 pounds of grapes, 35 gallons potential to harvest tomorrow. We will use that juice to add to the fermenting wine when the alcohol is at 10%. It will be interesting to see what that 35 gallons will add the the residual sugar in the finished wine. My guess is the finished wine may have only 12% residual sugar.
Wednesday October 5, 2022
The results for the Harvest Fair came in, we got 2 golds and 3 silvers!! One bronze was for the Luminaire. I am happy.
We did harvest the rest of the Viognier yesterday and blended it with the fermenting grapes we picked last week. We killed all yeast to stop the fermentation and all the wine is in the freezer now to cold stabilize and settle. The end results will be calculated next week.........
Saturday October 8, 2022
Few things are happening now, but we are still processing our Viognier late Harvest wine and we will have more info next week.
Jesse is going to pour for us at The Harvest Fair next Saturday so come on.......we will pour our 2 Golds and 2 others BUT there are so many other wines from our friends to taste........
Tuesday October 11, 2022
I have been busy watching the Raiders lose again so I have not been happy!!!!
We are still working on our last wine, our Late Harvest Viognier. I will have more later, it has been complicated.
I have been investing in 2 stocks that will make me a lot of money???? OK, maybe not? Is Carnival Cruise Lines going Belly UP..........Seriously I love cruises, 8 total BUT even Pat and I have not been on a cruise for two+ years, for us it was a concern about covid and then we had other things to do. BUT, the stock is down to $6.5, It used to be even earlier this year at $27.5, All time high 74!!!!. As some of you know even FACEBOOK is down A LOT. We have had a lot of trouble with Facebook here at the winery so I am not surprised AND
Oh since Pat and I have not booked a new cruise does that mean ALL these new age 50 and 60 will not be doing cruises for sure.........THEY WILL?
Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest Cruise Line so, maybe they will go belly up, I doubt it, but the FUTURE.........one or many cruise lines will have ships ready to make a lot of money!!, My guess........................I would invest in all cruise lines one will be BIG?
Oh TSLA, Tesla, I am loading up again for a short term trade...........
Wednesday October 12, 2022
Oh, a little update on Carnival Cruise Lines.............
The stock was up 10% today, it could double in a few days or go DOWN again? BUT
Like I said Pat and I enjoy cruises so I looked up a new cruise next year in May or after harvest and NO Big suites, What I Want!, available to Alaska and even Panama Canal, THEY are all booked up for someone who wants to spend money.............
Thursday October 13, 2022
OK, I have had so many problems with the generator.....I may relate.......later, tomorrow, next week? I am working on a reply to 1.5 years of down time with a generator I paid $55,000. I will have more soon
Great dinner again, what is different, all our dinners are great!! Capon in my air fryer rotisserie..........
Nothing too interesting for my trades today....., still buying
The Harvest Fair is on Saturday so go check it out we won some medals........
I am somewhat interested in Baseball and the NFL game tonight so tomorrow is another day...........OH
I may go up to hear a CD? Elvis Sun Sessions..............
And before, that the hearings there is always my favorite for an hour,,,,,,,,,Wolf !!!!!!!!!
Friday October 14, 2022
Pat is into Rose wines, I have never had one I liked including ours. Pat likes ours but she tried 2 Harvest Fair Gold winners over the last few days and she has not liked either one, the last one was very TART, with no apparent fruit, so I suppose the judges like that kind of wine? I am not talking tart, Sauvignon Blanc stye which has a lot of character and differently a fruit component so I am confused why the judges liked these wines.
My trades this week!!, one CCL is doing well.........TSLA is not doing well, I keep buying as the stock has been falling.........is Elon selling to take care of his Twitter buy out, I just know the stock will go up eventually???
We are now packing up our wine club and we charged yesterday.........so do I have more money to invest in all these stocks going down!! OK, like in the past, the stock market averages will go to new highs, but when? AND some stocks will never recover so which ones??
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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