July 23 -
August 19, 2023 
Monday July 24, 2023
Still no color in the vineyard, I will look again tonight.
We had a great Club Party on Saturday. Our loyal Club members had great food and wine and purchased more. We also had a lot of library wines from vintages 2003-2013 that sold real well.
Today we are still racking wine and the temperatures are going down from a high of 107 Saturday.
Salvador just came in from working in the vineyard and told me he saw some color in the Pinot Noir and Peloursin. Like I said I will check tonight to see if other varieties are showing some berries turning.
8pm.....Just back and did see COLOR in Peloursin. Did not get over to the Pinot, I was too much into the other parts of our 20 Acres of vines.
Wednesday July 26, 2023
8pm again, we do have many bunches in Pinot showing color SO we could make another sparkling again and leave cloudy sediment in the wines.....more about that at another time......
What I saw this evening was some Petite Sirah which usually comes on with color early was showing a little color but A Lot of berries drying up. Some say this year has been cold but not here North of Healdsburg where we get hotter........
Sunday July 30, 2023
First Color !
Yes last night I took this picture of 120 year old Petite Sirah in the third block.
The other night I cooked Paella again, but this time with Rabbit. Has anyone done a paella with Rabbit? Pat is away so I can experiment. OK so I started by cooking the rabbit for over one hour with the top on and cooking very slowly.
Rabbit is very lean, virtually no fat SO I put in 4 tbsp of olive oil, some onion, garlic and celery. After an hour there is a lot juice. I made up some chicken stock from leftovers the night before that gave me enough liquid to cook the Bomba rice........SO good, I am still eating some for lunch each day.
So most of you who read this diary like my wine. I appreciate that but like I have said most people who come to Dry Creek are not familiar with the quality of my wines. SO should I do some marketing, does anyone have suggestions??
So to convince my self I do blind tastings compared to other wines of my kind. These wines can be very expensive. The last few nights I compared our newly bottled 2021 Sangiovese to 3 Italian Sangiovese based wines. One was $200, one was $325 and one was $675, the most expensive wine I have ever bought. I must say, the $750 wine was my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I liked all 4. After 4 nights now, I liked the $325 wine and my Sangiovese the most. Do I have the Coffaro palate, sure, I look for fruit up front but I am always looking for some body in the middle and a strong finish in wines. I will continue to taste new wine at least twice a week, I enjoy what I do!!
Saturday August 5, 2023
Back from the vineyard and looked at the new Cab that was budded over a few months ago, but boy are they sprouting up so Catarino says he is not fertilizing that area again......Such beautiful sights. I need to take a picture tonight showing the light thru the vines.
This past week we finished the new storage building. It has taken a long time but it may be even tight enough to keep those little mice out? We will store full wine case goods in there and also empty glass that will be used the next bottling in January. We have the night air fan coming on every night at 12 and off at 7 in the morning. The fan blows cool air into the building. Those hours are the coolest hours of the day, even today when it will be a high of 100 the temperature this morning at 5:30 was 55 degrees. When we went in the building this morning at 6am, it was 68 degrees. Also this morning we are putting in an air conditioner just in case on a really hot day we need to turn on the air to protect the wine.
Thursday August 10, 2023
The new building is finished!! Now we could store wine in the wonderful large building capable of storing many case of wine. I will let you know more later when we put wine in there, whether cased goods filled with our bottled wine or even barrels fermenting or finished!!
My back is killing me more than ever before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A nice customer, I am not blaming him..........gave us interesting info about my back problems so I started several stretching New exercises and I suppose I did too much
So I went to see about another problem, I am old.........so I have residual from laser in my leg because I had varicose veins and it is showing after 20+ years some scaling so the nice doctor gave me some ointment, I will see!!
Also big news, Catarino and Martha are getting a Model 3!! Yes, I am helping them out with free charging here so they will save $5000 a year.........sure some of you don't think about how much you are paying by paying for GAS when you drive to work SO yes
Catarino and Martha drive about 60 miles total to work and back, that costs money, about $20 a day about $5000 a year, besides they go to Modesto and Chico which are over 150 miles a way. Now they can charge here since we have so much solar on the Guest Building, free to me and them. SSSOOO
They will buy a Tesla Model 3 Long Range, look it up. It will cost them on a loan, $600 a month, but they also will get back $7500 from the Fed and $2000 from the State so they will come out ahead? I will help them out by putting down $5000 or more........
Have any of you thought about buying an EV? There are many choices besides Tesla? The cheap one Catarino bought will go over 300 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday August 12, 2023
So Catarino and Martha and I went down to Corte Madera, 66 miles a way to pick up a Model 3 Long Range for 45K, sure sales tax and destination charges so I will help them get the loan and put down the payment to qualify for the loan. The Model 3 will go 330 miles, sure if you don't drive over 60 miles an hour and not up and down hills so they are happy, they can go to Modesto to see their daughter and even maybe get back on a full charge that they can always do here. I am so excited for them........
Done deal, Catarino and Martha have their first new car ever, Catarino is 63 years old. They drove their new Model 3 back to Santa Rosa, they are so happy...........
Sunday August 13, 2023
An unexpected selfie...
Light through the Vines...
The top pic shows how intense I am looking for the best picture and did not know the camera flipped and took a picture of me! For the last week I have been trying to take a picture of the Light Through The Vines and the above one is the best so far but I have seen many others which where better but it is hard to take them at the right angle, just a move of the camera less than in inch can make the sun disappear. The pics are taken about 7:30 so the sun is low in the sky to the West. I will try again tonight.
Friday August 18, 2023
Down time with our Weather section on our Website. I suppose some of you have not seen it? Anyway we are working to get it up again??
http://coffaro.com/weatherANDcams.html
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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