February 15 - March 21, 2026 
Tuesday February 24, 2026
I have been so busy writing down in my new Appointment book, that I forgot to write in this diary. I have several new doctor appointments to see if the pain in several sections of my body can be improved. One of them was with an orthopedics doctor and I have a follow up with him next Month. He prescribed more MRIs in my back to see if he could do something to relieve my pain in my back. The other new doctor is a Rheumatologist to see if the pain in my neck and hand at night can be solved. I also have appointments for my on going left eye problem.
The other strange thing that happened was that someone tried to transfer money out of my Schwab account. Tomorrow, I will have more to say about all these matters and wine developments.
Wednesday February 25, 2026
There is too much to say about some interesting medical appointments so I will have to give more details after the appointments in the next two weeks.
As far as winery developments, I need to taste some samples tonight to get a better feel for what barrels I will use going forward. I will still be aging all our wines for 16 months except Rose and Whites. But some of our wines will be aged in different types of American oak than before and we will be using more French oak, especially for our Zinfandel based wines. This morning I watched and listened to two expert sales people for American and French oak talk about how different our 2025 wines showed now. I did not taste this morning but will try the wines tonight. I am learning more about how a new barrel can change our wines. So as I mentioned before I want the vineyard to show more in our wines, but also the grape it self shows better in different barrels. As you can tell I am a little confused about which barrels to use but I do know we will not be bottling our reds in July, only in January so the wines will be aged for 16 months. I Will have fun tonight when I taste many of our 2025 barrel samples.
Wednesday March 17 , 2026
We had a successful Barrel Tasting weekend. Below is a shot of our sales form that weekend. If you join our Club or especially buy futures, you will get great wine from Dry Creek Valley at the lowest prices of anyone.
My medical problems continue, but I did get some needles in me and it looks like DR. Dhillon will be able to burn a fluid of something in my back to last for a year! My hand is still swelling up and is painful at night, she says she may be able to fix that also. My left eye is still the biggest problem but I am hopeful that will improve.
We will be racking in two weeks and by tasting some samples of wine, I have decided to remove most of our new barrels and replace with one year old barrels, but only in our Zinfandel based wines and some lighter wines such as Grenache. As I have said I want the character of the vineyard to show through. I found by tasting our My Zin in a new French barrel and older barrel, the French barrel smoothed out the wine more than I want. Also by removing these new barrels after only 5 months, we will not have to buy as many new barrels this year.
Dave
For any comments or questions I encourage any of you to e-mail.....david@coffaro.com
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