David Coffaro Winery and Vineyard Winemaker's Diary 2002 Weel 2

David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery Winemaker's Diary

Week 2

January 6, 2002 to January 12, 2002

Wednesday, January 9, 2002
This week did not start off well for Kate and I. The Raiders Lost and I bit off the end of my tongue. Kate is a bigger fan than I and is mourning. I am suffering because I got excited when I was talking to Pat that evening and clamped down on my teeth at the wrong time. I bit off enough of my tongue so that it was flapping. After two nights I decided I had to cut off the end flap with nail clippers. After a bottle of Coffaro Petite Sirah it wasn't that bad. Now I am recovering. I can't answer for Kate who is still suffering from the Raider loss.
There are now 4 structures on our property. One is a metal building that serves as the winery (38 ft by 66 ft). Another is a wood structure building that serves as our storage for stacked wine. That involves wine on pallets with 42 cases stacked 3 high. This building holds a minimum of 4000 cases (32 ft by 20 ft). Our main residence where we live and our office exists, consists of two floor levels (3000 sq feet). Our new building is two levels high and is 32 by 60.
Pat and I want to remodel our kitchen in our residence, but we are also installing certain things in our new building. Since we want to move some appliances over to the new building, the Kitchen in our residence will be re-done. We have looked at Corian, but have not been able to select a pattern. We have also looked at Granite which has more possibilities. I equate in my mind only (not Pat's) that Corian is more like a LEXUS and Granite is more like a BMW. Do any of you have suggestions.
Pam, who design's my labels came up with a name for our new wine. This wine will be, starting with next year, mostly Rhone varietals. This year so far, we have a new wine called D.C. Cuvee which is mostly Carignan. Next year this new wine will consist of Carignan, petite sirah ( probably originating from the Rhone area in France), morvedre and syrah. All the grapes for this wine will be from our estate vineyard. Thus, I need to change the name of D.C. Cuvee to another name possibility. Pam has suggested the name: "Ranger Dave". I know, the first time I heard it I went: Too Close!! Then I thought, some will not get the connection to Rhone wines and those that did get the connection may appreciate the name. I need your input, because we have to give our label company an answer for this new name in the next month.
The alcolyzer is finally here and is working. Brendan is coming back tomorrow and we will have more input. Initially we are concerned with the inconsistency of this $13,000 product. BUT after continued experiment we concluded that the distilled water we were using to calibrate the Alcolizer was interfering with the constant results. We found that we needed to do 5 alcohol after calibrating with water, inorder to achieve a stable result. Also we found that the analyses took longer than I hoped. We were hoping for results in one minute, but we will be very happy with the 2.5 min we got. We were told that the sample had to warm up to 68 degrees and our wine is stored at 62 now.
Thursday, January 10, 2002
After a day the name for our wine "Ranger Dave" has not worn well. We have been playing with many words today that we could use for the new wine. Here are a few: melange, Cotes, vigne, crique, valle, sec, fiume, secca and terroir. One possibility is "Melange du Terroir". "Mix of the Soil". This wine will actually be from from many different soils from our vineyard, but I think I will have to sleep on this one also. Do any of you have suggestions?
Friday, January 11, 2002
Thanks for all the suggestions I have received by e-mail. Keep them coming. With your help, I have come up with a few more possibilities. "le Melange de la Terre" (blend of the Earth) or "melanger de la Terre" (blend from the Earth). Of course I feel I could drop the "le" in front of melange. "mélanger des sols" (blend of the soils) is another possibility. And then I could drop the de and la's. How about "Terre Melange". Or "Melange Terre" (Earth Blend). We like "melange" and we like "Terre" so please come up with more suggestions.

Dave

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	*Wednesday, January 9, 2002* This week did not start off well for Kate and I. The Raiders Lost and I bit off the end of my tongue. Kate is a bigger fan than I and is mourning. I am suffering because I got excited when I was talking to Pat that evening and clamped down on my teeth at the wrong time. I bit off enough of my tongue so that it was flapping. After two nights I decided I had to cut off the end flap with nail clippers. After a bottle of Coffaro Petite Sirah it wasn't that bad. Now I am recovering. I can't answer for Kate who is still suffering from the Raider loss. There are now 4 structures on our property. One is a metal building that serves as the winery (38 ft by 66 ft). Another is a wood structure building that serves as our storage for stacked wine. That involves wine on pallets with 42 cases stacked 3 high. This building holds a minimum of 4000 cases (32 ft by 20 ft). Our main residence where we live and our office exists, consists of two floor levels (3000 sq feet). Our new building is two levels high and is 32 by 60. Pat and I want to remodel our kitchen in our residence, but we are also installing certain things in our new building. Since we want to move some appliances over to the new building, the Kitchen in our residence will be re-done. We have looked at Corian, but have not been able to select a pattern. We have also looked at Granite which has more possibilities. I equate in my mind only (not Pat's) that Corian is more like a LEXUS and Granite is more like a BMW. Do any of you have suggestions. Pam, who design's my labels came up with a name for our new wine. This wine will be, starting with next year, mostly Rhone varietals. This year so far, we have a new wine called D.C. Cuvee which is mostly Carignan. Next year this new wine will consist of Carignan, petite sirah ( probably originating from the Rhone area in France), morvedre and syrah. All the grapes for this wine will be from our estate vineyard. Thus, I need to change the name of D.C. Cuvee to another name possibility. Pam has suggested the name: "Ranger Dave". I know, the first time I heard it I went: Too Close!! Then I thought, some will not get the connection to Rhone wines and those that did get the connection may appreciate the name. I need your input, because we have to give our label company an answer for this new name in the next month. The alcolyzer is finally here and is working. Brendan is coming back tomorrow and we will have more input. Initially we are concerned with the inconsistency of this $13,000 product. BUT after continued experiment we concluded that the distilled water we were using to calibrate the Alcolizer was interfering with the constant results. We found that we needed to do 5 alcohol after calibrating with water, inorder to achieve a stable result. Also we found that the analyses took longer than I hoped. We were hoping for results in one minute, but we will be very happy with the 2.5 min we got. We were told that the sample had to warm up to 68 degrees and our wine is stored at 62 now. *Thursday, January 10, 2002* After a day the name for our wine "Ranger Dave" has not worn well. We have been playing with many words today that we could use for the new wine. Here are a few: melange, Cotes, vigne, crique, valle, sec, fiume, secca and terroir. One possibility is "Melange du Terroir". "Mix of the Soil". This wine will actually be from from many different soils from our vineyard, but I think I will have to sleep on this one also. Do any of you have suggestions? *Friday, January 11, 2002* Thanks for all the suggestions I have received by e-mail. Keep them coming. With your help, I have come up with a few more possibilities. "le Melange de la Terre" (blend of the Earth) or "melanger de la Terre" (blend from the Earth). Of course I feel I could drop the "le" in front of melange. "mélanger des sols" (blend of the soils) is another possibility. And then I could drop the de and la's. How about "Terre Melange". Or "Melange Terre" (Earth Blend). We like "melange" and we like "Terre" so please come up with more suggestions.
	Dave
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