Week 30
July 22, 2001 to July 28, 2001 

	Friday July 27,  2001
	Nothing much has been happening here. The weather temperatures have turned cool with few days over 90. Some of the highs have been under 80. This is in the normal range for July and August although our highs usually are in the 90's. Since we had all those high temperatures earlier in the year, most of us are welcoming these cool days. I feel we are still on track for starting our sauv blanc in 4 to 5 weeks and zin in 6 to 7 weeks. We will need higher temperatures if I am right.  We have had very few visitors lately. It has given me time to reflect on the coming harvest. I see a potential big crop out in our vineyard so it will be tempting to produce 4400 cases again. I would rather go down in production so I don't have to think much about where I will sell my wine. With our slow economy, I am still concerned that it will affect the small wineries also. I have heard that wine in bulk is getting hard to sell with prices as low as $5 per gallon for chardonnay--that is $1 a bottle. Since Kate is now working at Oakville market, I have been checking out the zinfandel bottle prices for the local wineries. I am amazed to be seeing prices of zin and blends at $25 to $40, considerably higher prices than our wines, $18 to $23. Most everyone around here think I am charging too low.  I have been drinking some of my newly bottled wines and find that my favorites at this time are the carignan, estate cuvee, block 4 and mourvedre. Of course I like them all; I have to. I like the concentration of the Aca and petite sirah also. I have been pouring the neighbors' zin, estate zin, cab franc, mourvedre and syrah for the last week. The mourvedre is our best selling wine. We are selling equal amounts of the two zins. I like them both equally at this time and feel this will be a very good year for zinfandel.  Dave
	Home | Read | Diary | Public Forum | Tell Us What You Think of Our Diary! | Last Week | Next Week