David Coffaro Winery and Vineyard Winemaker's Diary 2008 Weeks 40-42

David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery Winemaker's Diary

Weeks 40 - 42

October 5 - October 25, 2008

Tuesday October 7, 2008
Since this diary is for me also I would like to document what has happened in the last several days:
On last Monday September 29 Pat and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. It also happened to be the biggest point drop on the Dow Jones Industrials in history. On Tuesday Al Davis of the Raiders fired Lane Kiffin. I hate Al Davis. On Tuesday or Wednesday I broke my toe. I dropped a cast iron umbrella stand on my toe. I thought the 2 foot section that holds the umbrella was permanently attached, but it slipped out as I was moving the stand to the other side of the barrel storage area. Finally today I am feeling a little better. The injury did not slow me down much because there was too much to do around here. Also on Wednesday the Senate passed the relief bill.
On Thursday of course there was the VP debate. That was fun to watch and on Friday the Stock Market went down again after the relief bill was approved by the House and Bush signed it. I believe if the bill was not approved the Dow would have gone down to 8000 quickly. Now I think it will trend lower slowly. We hit an interim low of 9550 yesterday before rallying back to 10,000. Today we are heading down again and I feel the low of yesterday will hold for awhile and we will get a rally. I won't predict what happens next. There are too many things that can happen in the World. The stock market is a bellwether of the US economy and tries to predict out as much as 12 months. Who knows what will happen in one year. Remember the stock market does not like uncertainty.
1:00 Pm: Boy was I wrong. The Dow Jones Industrials went down 508 points today to 9447 taking out yesterdays low by 100 points. Who knows where it will go tomorrow. I will be buying tomorrow if we open way down. We have to be near a rally, but we could go down to a permanent low first, under 9,000. This could get scary.
By the way, we are still making wine!! Today we pressed a barrel of Alvarelhao and we are now going to fill 12 barrels of Petite Sirah. Tomorrow we will fill a barrel of Aglianico, Souzao and Touriga. We already have 2008 Zinfandel to taste and we should have Block 4 ready soon. Come by and taste.
Saturday October 11, 2008
I have been busy buying stocks. I have not put all my life savings in but I have invested about $40,000 in the last week. I even purchased $15,000 yesterday at the opening, 6:32 Am, when the Dow hit 7882. It was only there for three minutes and then traded as high as 8901 later in the day (1,000 points from the low) only to close at 8451 right in the middle of the days trading range. I hope this was the bottom.
It was nice to predict that the Dow might go as low as 8000 but I was very surprised how fast it got there. I obviously have big loses at this point, but it is only money!!
Today we started tasting our 2008 Zinfandel and our 2008 Block 4 out of the barrel. I was very happy to taste that great spice character already. Come on by!!
Monday October 13, 2008
I know many if not most of you don't care about the Dow Jones Industrials but I just wanted to mention that we may have hit a bottom. From the low of 7882 Friday morning the Dow is up 19%, over 11% just today. Let's hope we continue to rise. That will help many of your 401 k's.
We are at a high temperature today of 90 degrees. It looks like we may get in our Carignan and Cabernet later this week.
Thursday October 16, 2008
We started picking Carignan yesterday and plan on finishing today. Sugars look like they will be around 24%. I'll have a better number later today. Catarino is going to start on our Cabernet later today and finish up tomorrow.
Thursday October 23, 2008
We will be finished harvesting tomorrow. Yesterday we finished picking our second crop which will be sold to the Wine Guerrilla. Tomorrow we will be finished with the Cabernet that goes into the Estate Cuvee and our Mourvedre that will go into the Terre Melange. The quality continues to be excellent.
Almost everything we pressed into the barrel a few weeks ago is ready to taste. We are very impressed so far.

Dave

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	*Tuesday October 7, 2008* Since this diary is for me also I would like to document what has happened in the last several days: On last Monday September 29 Pat and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. It also happened to be the biggest point drop on the Dow Jones Industrials in history. On Tuesday Al Davis of the Raiders fired Lane Kiffin. I hate Al Davis. On Tuesday or Wednesday I broke my toe. I dropped a cast iron umbrella stand on my toe. I thought the 2 foot section that holds the umbrella was permanently attached, but it slipped out as I was moving the stand to the other side of the barrel storage area. Finally today I am feeling a little better. The injury did not slow me down much because there was too much to do around here. Also on Wednesday the Senate passed the relief bill. On Thursday of course there was the VP debate. That was fun to watch and on Friday the Stock Market went down again after the relief bill was approved by the House and Bush signed it. I believe if the bill was not approved the Dow would have gone down to 8000 quickly. Now I think it will trend lower slowly. We hit an interim low of 9550 yesterday before rallying back to 10,000. Today we are heading down again and I feel the low of yesterday will hold for awhile and we will get a rally. I won't predict what happens next. There are too many things that can happen in the World. The stock market is a bellwether of the US economy and tries to predict out as much as 12 months. Who knows what will happen in one year. Remember the stock market does not like uncertainty. 1:00 Pm: Boy was I wrong. The Dow Jones Industrials went down 508 points today to 9447 taking out yesterdays low by 100 points. Who knows where it will go tomorrow. I will be buying tomorrow if we open way down. We have to be near a rally, but we could go down to a permanent low first, under 9,000. This could get scary. By the way, we are still making wine!! Today we pressed a barrel of Alvarelhao and we are now going to fill 12 barrels of Petite Sirah. Tomorrow we will fill a barrel of Aglianico, Souzao and Touriga. We already have 2008 Zinfandel to taste and we should have Block 4 ready soon. Come by and taste. *Saturday October 11, 2008* I have been busy buying stocks. I have not put all my life savings in but I have invested about $40,000 in the last week. I even purchased $15,000 yesterday at the opening, 6:32 Am, when the Dow hit 7882. It was only there for three minutes and then traded as high as 8901 later in the day (1,000 points from the low) only to close at 8451 right in the middle of the days trading range. I hope this was the bottom. It was nice to predict that the Dow might go as low as 8000 but I was very surprised how fast it got there. I obviously have big loses at this point, but it is only money!! Today we started tasting our 2008 Zinfandel and our 2008 Block 4 out of the barrel. I was very happy to taste that great spice character already. Come on by!! *Monday October 13, 2008* I know many if not most of you don't care about the Dow Jones Industrials but I just wanted to mention that we may have hit a bottom. From the low of 7882 Friday morning the Dow is up 19%, over 11% just today. Let's hope we continue to rise. That will help many of your 401 k's. We are at a high temperature today of 90 degrees. It looks like we may get in our Carignan and Cabernet later this week. *Thursday October 16, 2008* We started picking Carignan yesterday and plan on finishing today. Sugars look like they will be around 24%. I'll have a better number later today. Catarino is going to start on our Cabernet later today and finish up tomorrow. *Thursday October 23, 2008* We will be finished harvesting tomorrow. Yesterday we finished picking our second crop which will be sold to the Wine Guerrilla. Tomorrow we will be finished with the Cabernet that goes into the Estate Cuvee and our Mourvedre that will go into the Terre Melange. The quality continues to be excellent. Almost everything we pressed into the barrel a few weeks ago is ready to taste. We are very impressed so far.
	Dave
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