Weeks 46 - 49
November 18, 2007 - December 15, 2007 

	Tuesday November 20, 2007 I hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving. I know I will. Our Sauv Blanc is almost dry. It still has about 0.2% sugar. It tastes great so Steve and Matt want me to stop the fermentation and leave this small amount of sugar. I probably won't do that because the acid is not that high that it needs some sugar to take the sharpness away. Remember New Zealand Sauv Blancs usually have a small amount of sugar left in them, but they have much higher acids than our wine has. The Late Harvest is still fermenting actively and it should be done in about two weeks. It is going to be fun to see where it stops at. Will it be over 10% alcohol? Will it be over 20% residual sugar? Our red wines are almost all finished fermenting. Many of these are high alcohol. In two weeks I will start calculating the alcohols from all barrels. Then I will be able to make up my blends in an Excel spreadsheet. On January 7 we will start blending and in the last week of January we will bottle our two white wines and also bottle the 2006 Ultimate Cuvee. Thursday November 29, 2007 Wow, another week has passed. Next week will be fun for me because we will be calculating alcohols and acids and then I will start deciding on my blends for January. We have been tasting out of the barrel the last two weekends and have sold a good deal of "Futures". The Bordeaux varietals which will go into Aca Modot are fascinating to taste. The 2006 Ultimate Cuvee has only two more months of barrel aging and it is tasting the best of any barrel sample. Of course it has now been in the barrel for 14 months and thus is very complex and smooth. We are down to our last few cases so you will find we have removed it from our order form. If any of you are still interested just drop me an e-mail.  In the last several weeks we have been working on upgrading our FAQS section so you might check it out. Sunday December 2, 2007 We have a new wine for sale. It is a "Future" and will be ready for pickup in March. It is our first Late Harvest for two years and is called 2007 Dolce. It will have about 25% residual sugar and consist of 70% Sauv Blanc and 30% Muscat. The price is $14 and $12 for Vintage Circle customers. Wednesday December 12, 2007 I have heard from several customers that "Dolce" is already in use by Far Niente winery. They sell their Late Harvest wine for over $70 a half bottle. I don't want to mess with them since they have far more money than I do. I have changed the name of our Late Harvest white two times this week and I am still not satisfied. I now have decided to change it back to what I have used in the past...Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. That will necessitate my adding some of our San Luis Obispo dry Sauv Blanc. I'm not sure how much yet because the late harvest is 30% muscat right now so I will have to add enough to bring that total down to 25%. To call our late harvest a varietal Sauv Blanc it must contain 75% Sauvignon Blanc. Right now the fermentation has slowed down and we are sitting at 9.5% alcohol and 27% Residual sugar. After adding the extra Sauv Blanc we should be somewhere around 10% alcohol and 25% residual. I will be happy and I am sure you will be too. I have pretty much finished setting up the blends for my 2007 red wines and I will report on the figures soon. I do know most of the wines are over 15% alcohol and some of the wines have low acid. The Aca Modot will be definitely closer to 14% and right now the varieties going into it are tasting great.
	Dave
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