Cima Collina

Archive for April, 2006

Here are some recent photos of our own organically certified estate vineyard, Hilltop Ranch, in Carmel Valley.

In the photos on the left, top and bottom, is Pinot Noir on the top or crest block.  Appolonio, our one and only vineyard guy is working on them here.  The photo on the top right is the lower block.  There is a few rows of Pinot Gris in the foreground and the rest is Pinot Noir.  In the back of this photo there are new retaining walls that were put in place late last year (this part of the vineyard is very steep).  The bottom photo on the right is the pond and bridge and in the back, behind the oak trees in the pond block with is all Dijon 777 clone Pinot Noir.

I will post much more information about the ranch as soon as I can pin down Appolonio, our ranch managers Tom and Cara, and our owner, Dick, for photos, so I can put their mug shots for all to see.

Some Housekeeping:

We were featured this week as the small business blog of the day. Check it out!

Today:

We will pour wine at the South Valley Wine Auction in Morgan Hill.  A fun event to benefit the athletic programs in the local school district.

 Tomorrow:

We will pour wine at the Simon Bull Gallery from 7-9 in Carmel.  This is a benefit for International Students, Inc.

We will pour wine in Monterey at the 10th Annual Legal Services for Seniors Cioppino Event in Monterey.  It should be a fun and lively time. Phil, from Phil’s Fish Market in Moss Landing will be servin it up that night.

 

• Posted in Cima Collina, In the Vineyard
• Comments Off on Spring at Hilltop Ranch, Carmel Valley

This post is in response to Ben’s comments to my previous post “Artisan is a Relative Term”, below:

• Ben Says:
  April 26th, 2006 at 9:43 pm eIt’s funny. My spell check doesn’t recognize “artisinal.”        

  Hey Annette, I’m going to ask you to generalize. At around what case production would you say it becomes impossible for the winemaker to be truly hands on and it becomes more of an administrative position. I know it all depends on the operation, but at what point is hand crafted labor forced to give way to assembly lines? 5,000, 10,000 cases? 20,000?

• Hi Ben,
  Artisanal isn’t in my spell check, either, but hey, this is my blog so I can take a liberty here and there. (Hee, hee)

  As far as your question about winery size, that is hard to say and really depends upon the operation, the winemaker, and the culture of the company.  I can try and answer your question based only on my own experience:   I have worked in a winery that produced 50,000 cases/year, and the winemaker was still very much hands-on and involved in the physical work.  I have worked in a few wineries that made 400,000-600,000 cases a year and in those wineries the winemakers did a lot of desk work and went to a lot of meetings, and there were cellar crews that took care of the process from beginning to end.  The winemakers in the 400,000 case winery, however, were in the cellar smelling barrels, checking for leaks and sanitation problems, and were as aware as one can be in that kind of environment of what was going on.  In the 600,000 case winery, I was the one going around, smelling barrels, checking for leaks, etc., and my observations went up (maybe)through the chain of command (I wasn’t the winemaker at that winery, just a cellar rat).

  So, take from that what you will.  Artisan really is a relative term and depends upon one’s own perspective.  I can sit here and type all day about all the hands-on things we do here, and the way I look at it it really is hands-on, but there are folks that make wine here in California that destem their grapes by hand, don’t own a pump, and make only a few barrels of wine (George Wine Co.) each year — that’s a serious hands-on commitment and one I wouldn’t be prepared to take on anytime soon.

  So, I wish I could give you a better answer, but, alas, there are no easy answers, especially when it comes to the world of wine.  At least we are talking about wine here — how onerous is it to dig a little deeper to find out more about what one is drinking?  Maybe, it could be as bad as just having a few more empty bottles at the end of the day?  Cheers!

  
  

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  “Artisan” is a Relative Term

  April 25th, 2006 by Annette

  In this day and age of marketing and spin, it is difficult to know what is real and what is contrived or exaggeration.  These days, the proliferation of wine labels is daunting as well.  This has occurred not only because many new wineries have been created over the years, but also because large corporate wineries have offered new “small” labels of their own to take advantage of the consumer’s desire to purchase “artisan” wines. 

  Now, I have nothing against large wineries or, for that matter, large production wines. Afterall, wineries such as Gallo and Kendall-Jackson have all introduced a lot of people to wine, and that is great for the industry.  These wines are most often affordable and I think drinking wine in general is good for people’s health no matter where it comes from or how much it costs.  But what I don’t like is the smoke and mirrors, romance and roses method of marketing and selling a possibly inauthentic “artisan” wine to unsuspecting winedrinkers who are looking for a unique, handmade product.

  The poor word “artisan” has taken such a beating in my view — the term is now used so loosely (for instance:  I just heard Carl’s Jr. is using “artisan” breads in new sandwich items??).  I have toured many, many wineries of various shapes and sizes over the years and have worked in a variety of wineries in differing capacities as well.  I’ve also talked with lots of winemakers.  So, without being specific about certain wineries (I wouldn’t want it to seem as though I am unfairly criticizing any winery here because that is not my intent), I would like to elucidate what artisan probably means in a large winery and what artisan means to me and many other small winery winemakers.

  Large winery:  These facilities can be huge.  Hundreds or even thousands of truckloads of grapes are processed every year(each truck can hold about 20-22 tons grapes at a time), and during harvest at a large winery one will often see trucks parked in long lines in the hot sun waiting to dump their loads.  Much of this fruit is harvested by machine, and machine harvested fruit means that not only the fruit, but everything else in or around the vine is harvested as well:  snakes, mice, birds and bird’s nests, sprinkler heads, irrigation pipe, tomato worms, etc., etc.  (I could go on and on and mention unmentionables that I’ve either seen or heard about, but you get the picture).  This fruit is then processed, moved around by powerful pumps or screw conveyors, and sent to holding or fermentation tanks that can be 10,000, 20,000 or even 50,000 or 100,000 gallons in capacity.  All in all, these wineries are built to move extremely large volumes of grapes, juice and wine through the system.  Oh, and to be fair, I should mention that although all of that MOG (Material Other than Grapes) I mentioned earlier tends to come in with those grape shipments, wines at these facilities are usually sterile filtered in the end, so don’t worry about getting mouse hair or bird feathers in your wine bottle…….

  The “artisan” wines made in large facilities may or may not be made differently from the “less-special”, large-volume wines.  These wines might be made from grapes of a certain part of a vineyard, they might be wines in barrel identified as interesting or unique, or they might not be a whole lot different from other wines the winery produces, they just have a different label.

  Winemakers in these facilities tend to be what I call “administrative” winemakers (I say this with much respect –I have many friends who work in these positions, by the way – and also out of experience because at one time I was one of them).  These winemakers tend to sit at their desks and write work orders.  The lab does the analysis for them and gets samples they need.  Sometimes these winemakers go out into vineyards, other times they rely on the vineyard managers to tell them when to harvest.  Grape contracts are made by grape buyers in the company or are grown by the winery, so winemakers make wine with what grapes are given to them.  They may or may not use barrels to age the wine (much wine is “microoxgenated” in stainless steel tanks with “barrel alternatives”, for instance).  The culture of a large facility may even look down upon a winemaker who wants to be physically involved in the wine production process.  Afterall, a winemaker who is driving a forklift or doing a pumpover might be taking someone else’s job duties in the overall hierarchy of the company.

  So, a “small” production or “artisan” wine that comes from a large facility may or may not have experienced any “hands-on” treatment, as these words connotate.

  Small Winery: 

  To give you an idea of what I mean by small, I will use tons of grapes as a measurement.  Last year, for instance, Cima Collina processed 60 tons of hand-picked wine grapes.  Other small wineries are bigger than this or smaller, but we aren’t talking thousands of tons here.  Most small wineries sort fruit by hand and eye (so, pulling out anything rotted, unripe, any leaves, the occasional plastic vine tie), move grapes, juice, or wine around as gently and as little as possible with equipment designed specifically for gently, small winery use.  They might also use small tanks or bins (bins can be 1/2-ton, 3/4-ton, maybe tanks are 1-5 tons in capacity).  In the spirit of being straightforward, yes, some bugs do come in with the grapes — earwigs and yellowjackets mostly. We try to get them out as best we can, but some do go into the tanks with the grapes. 

  As for the winemaking, I have folks who are in the cellar doing the work, but I pull my weight and do the wine work just as much.  White wines, for instance, I do myself.  I load the presses, I press the juice, I barrel the juice down, inoculate it, etc. etc.  For reds, I sort grapes, do punchdowns, drain tanks, shovel skins.  I get my own samples and do my own lab analysis, but what I have discovered is that the lab analysis I do now is very minimal compared to other jobs I have worked.  I attribute this to working so closely with the wines and can understand more often than not what is going on with a wine without needing a number to tell me.

  I could go on and on and bore you with the details, but you get the idea.  Suffice it to say that small wineries pay more attention to detail because they can, they were made to do just that, and very often the winemaker is in the middle of it making sure nothing falls through the cracks.  That is what artisan means to me and other small winemakers and wineries around the world.

  Where does “artisan” rate on your scale of authenticity?

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  Winemaking and Housekeeping

  April 20th, 2006 by Annette

  2005 Wines

  I’ve been tasting through the 2005 wines and these are my impressions thus far:

  Chula Vina Chardonnay:  mineral and pear, very light herbal character right now, nice textural mouthfeel good finish thus far.  It will be racked in early August and bottled at the end of August.  It will get much fatter and richer from 3-1/2 more month of barrel ageing.  If it is anything like the 2004, the herbal character will go away and the oak will come forward a little more.

  Chula Vina Pinot:  all really good, but really a mixed bag in terms of characters.  Some lots of Pommard tend toward cranberry fruit, while the 115 is black cherry.  Nice mouthfeel so far.  It will be interesting to see how these develop until racking.  These will be racked at the very end of June.

  Tondre Grapefield Pinot Noir:  this is the first year we made this and it is pure Santa Lucia Highland — lots of dark fruit, dense, rich.  It is not very expressive now and I think will open up quite a bit more, but it has great potential.  This wine will be racked mid-August.

  Hilltop Red:  we are blending this as I type.  All of the components (Newell Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc and Petite Sirah; Cedar Lane Merlot) needed racking and airing.  We steamed the barrels to get the tartrates out.  After blending today, they will be SO2 adjusted and splashed back into the barrels.  These barrels will probably be racked again in a few months, and then racked and bottled at the end of August.  Dark, rich, lucious.  I love this wine — it is very approachable.

  Hilltop Ranch and Vineyard Estate “Linda’s Block” Pinot Gris:  I only have one barrel and one keg of this.  I wish I had 10 times as much.  It’s filled with lots of minerality and texture.  I have been stirring it very, very gently the last few weeks.  I don’t know if this will be a commercial bottling because we will probably want to drink it all ourselves…….:).  (I’m going to have to rig up an alarm system for this barrel because I wouldn’t put it past Dick, the owner, to sneak it here and siphon some to go with dinner.  Dick is Cima Collina’s owner.  He was here last week and really liked this wine.  This block is named after his sister-in-law, Linda (more on Dick and his family at a later date…)).

  Hilltop Ranch and Vineyard Estate Pinot Noir:  This, too, is the first year for this fruit.  Although a new vineyard, the vines were in their 5th leaf at harvest time.  We decided in 2004 not to let a crop on the vines that year because most of the vines needed more time and to reserve their energy to establish themselves (the soil has a good amount of what we call “chalk rock”, so it was difficult for them to establish themselves).  I did not keep the different blocks separate (lower block, pond block and top block) because there wasn’t enough fruit to warrant that (only 4.75 tons altogether).  It is very distinctive from the other Pinot we have here:  the fruit had tiny, tiny berries and the color looks almost like Syrah ( I had treat it more like Syrah than Pinot while it was fermenting).  Beyond color, though, it displays right now some sassafras, cola and spice characters as well as lots of dark fruit, but it is very, very closed, so it is hard to come up with a whole lot of descriptors at this point.  I’m very excited about this wine.  It not only is the first Pinot vineyard in the lower Carmel Valley region, but the soil is fantastic, the grapes are organically grown, our ranch team is great, and the wine has great potential.  Stay tuned on this one….

  Housekeeping

  Where to Find Cima Collina Wines

  Here’s an updated list of where one may find Cima Collina Wines in California:

   Lunardi’s:  all 6 locations (San Bruno, Los Gatos, San Jose(2), Belmont, Walnut Creek, Burlingame)

  Mission Ranch, Clint Eastwood’s resort in Carmel

  The Grill at Ryan Ranch, Monterey (as of May 10)

  Deli Treasures, Mid-Carmel Valley

  Fandango, Pacific Grove
  Shopper’s Corner, Santa Cruz               Clementine’s Kitchen, Monterey
  Deluxe Foods, Aptos                             Uncorked, Saratoga
  Kuleto’s, Los Gatos                               Star Market, Salinas
  The Bountiful Basket, Carmel                Sierra Mar, Post Ranch, Big Sur
  Passionfish, Pacific Grove                      Monterey Fish House
  Village Fish House                                Paradise Wine Bar
  Grasing’s, Carmel-by-the-Sea               La Playa, Carmel-by-the-Sea
  Bixby’s Martini Bistro, Carmel                Bahama Billy’s, Carmel
  Taste of Monterey                                The Market at Pebble Beach

   

  Events

  Look for us at:

  Clementine’s tomorrow — Friday, April 21 from 11-1 — for a live radio broadcast and Cima Collina Pinot Noir tasting.  Clementine’s (in additional to having a wonderful name) is a great place to buy wine, cheese, sandwiches, in addition to kitchen items.  Check it out when in the area!  Also at Clementine’s on May 4, we will pour our wines for all to enjoy…

   the South Valley Wine & Food Auction in Morgan Hill on the evening of April 28th.  This is a fundraising event for the athletic programs at the Morgan Hill Unified School District.  It looks like there will be lots of small wineries pouring at the event.

  Friends of Legal Services for Seniors 11th Annual Ciao! Cioppino! Dinner.  We are donating the wine for this event and Phil from Phil’s Fish Market is cooking the Cioppino.  If you have never tried Phil’s Cioppino then you are missing out!  This is Saturday, April 29th.

  On May 10th we will do a wine tasting event by pairing our Pinot Noir with dinner at The Grill at Ryan Ranch.  If you haven’t been to the Grill, then try it out.  Great food, great prices, great people.

  In Chicago:  Our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay will be the featured wines at a fundraising event for Friends of Ryerson Woods on May 6. 

  Wine Review

  Interested in finding out what other folks think of our Pinot?  Take a look at this April 9th write-up from the “Prince of Pinot“.

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  Old Words as a Reminder of Delightful Simplicity

  April 18th, 2006 by Annette

  I stumbled across a quote from the writings of Colette the other day.  Colette was a rather prolific French writer who grew up in Burgundy during the late 1800’s (for more information click here).  She is famous for much of her fiction, but I enjoy reading her writings about her life in Burgundy, and also those about her mother, Sido, a practical woman who was in tune with nature and its cycles.  In this passage, she talks about her introduction to wine and her wine “schooling” as a child:

       It was between my eleventh and fifteenth years that this admirable educational program was perfected.  My mother was afraid that I was outgrowing my strength and was in danger of a “decline”.  One by one, she unearthed, from their bed of dry sand, certain bottles that had been aging beneath our house in a cellar — ………– I drank Chateau Lafites, Chambertins, and Cortons which had escaped capture by the “Prussians” in 1870.  Certain of these wines were already fading, pale and scented like a dead rose; they lay on a sediment of tannin that darkened their bottles, but most of them retained their aristocratic ardor and their invigorating powers.  The good old days!
       I drained that paternal cellar, goblet by goblet, delicately…My mother would recork the opened bottle and contemplate the glory of the great French vineyards in my cheeks.
       Happy those children who are not made to blow out their stomachs with great glasses of red-tinted water during their meals!  Wise those parents who measure out to their progeny a tiny glass of pure wine – and I mean pure in the noble sense of the word – and teach them:  “Away from the meal tale, you have the pump, the faucet, the spring, and the filter at your disposal.  Water is for quenching the thirst.  Wine, according to its quality and the soil where it is grown, is a necessary tonic, a luxury, anda fitting tribute to good food.”  And is it not also a source of nourishment in itself?……It is no small thing to conceive a contempt, so early in life, not only for those who drink no wine at all but also for those who drink too much.
       The vine and the wine it produces are two great mysteries.  Alone in the vegetable kingdom, the vine makes the true savor of the earth intelligible to man.  With what fidelity it makes the translation!  It senses, then expresses, in its clusters of fruit the secrets of the soil.  The flint, through the vine, tells us that it is living, fusible, a giver of nourishment.  Only in wine does the ungrateful chalk pour out its golden tears…..
  

  Can we take claim to any of these theories in modern day America?  Wine as medicine?  Teaching our children about respect and responsibility for alcohol?  The transference of the qualities of the soil through the vine into a form that is not only useful to the body, but also a unique, singular expression of it’s elements?

  From reading these old words, I realize that most folks in France at the time who were probably more agrarian in those days, accepted these ideas without question.  Here in the modern America, we have to analyze, debate, pour money into an organization in order to test an idea, etc. about all of those “contentious” topics:  underage drinking,  wine and health, “what is terroir?”.  I realize debate is a democratic principal, but these days, I prefer to keep it simple and just read Colette and enjoy a glass of wine.  How about you?  Bon Sante!   

   

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  Oregon Pinot Noir

  April 13th, 2006 by Annette

  This post is in response to Nodia’s comment below:

  Nodia Says:
  April 12th, 2006 at 2:20 pm e

  Annette,

  I have read some of your blogs and it led me to wonder if you have ever made it up to Oregon. The VanDuzer Pinots are excellent – not to mention that the wine tasting in Oregon is free (the way it should be). Don’t get me wrong I love a good California wine (I remember when Napa actually grew apples, pears and other fruit in their orchads). I guess I wanted to pick your opinion on Oregon’s pinots.

  _{Nodia Relnz}

  

  Hi Nodia,
  I have made it up to Oregon several times and I really like Oregon, Oregonians, Oregonian winemakers, and Oregon Pinot Noir.  I also have great respect for all of the folks making Oregon Pinot for many reasons:  many Oregon “Pinot Pioneers” were making Pinot before most anyone was here in California (and also before it became popular to make or drink it) and it is due to their generous, experimental attitude and philosophy that has led the way to improve Pinot Noir not only in Oregon, but also in California and I think at this point the world over.  Also, Oregon winemakers have to deal with a lot more weather challenges than we are used to here (California winemaking can be kind of boring that way), so they have to be great winemakers to make the most of what Mother Nature gives them in both “good” or more challenging harvests.

  I have attended the Steamboat winemaker’s conference once, and would like to go again.  I’ve also attended IPNC (in my humble opinion the best event for wine lovers and food lovers alike).  It’s these kinds of events (they were started by Oregon winemakers and winelovers and continue to this day because of their dedication to the grape) that has encouraged a kind of esprit de corps among Pinot Noir winemakers and enthuasists alike.

  I can’t say enough about Oregon. (click here for an event I thought would be fun and educational — Oregon Pinot Camp) For a long time I could pick a Domain Drouhin out of a blind tasting no problem — there’s just something about their wines.  Van Duzer is also a favorite.  Adelsheim.  I could go on and on.  Oregon Pinot is what Pinot should be: usually feminine, aromatic, elegant, great with food.

  So, there are my thoughts about Oregon.  What are yours?

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  “Hammer and a Nail”

  April 12th, 2006 by Annette

  In all of the roles I’ve played in a variety of wineries over the years, the hands-on stuff is what I like the best and what keeps me so enthusiastic about making wine.  But when people ask me what I do, one of the most common reactions when I tell them is hardly any reaction at all.  After all the years I’ve been involved in wine production, I’ve come to expect a blank stare from folks outside the industry when I say “I’m a winemaker”.  I’ve realized my being a winemaker usually surprises people.  The job of winemaker isn’t all that common outside of regions like Napa or Sonoma, Burgundy or Bordeaux, and I guess folks don’t really know what to make of a woman who not only likes to make wine, but really likes every facet of the production process as well.  And to a certain extent I understand this, afterall, where I come from, it is not very common for a woman to drive a forklift, much less want to take a pump apart or find out why the press isn’t working…..

   “I look behind my ears for the green….”

  So, yeah, maybe I’m pretty good at my job now, but there’s a time in everybody’s life when they are young, eager, dumb, green and untried, and when I started in wine production, that’s exactly what I was.  I was also a young woman, so I probably had even less going for me in a certain sense because let’s face it, not many folks expect a whole lot from a young woman when she’s asked to “clean that tank”, and there was maybe a tendency for others to dismiss the idea that I might actually pull my weight.  And, yes, I did have a lot to learn, but, I’ve had tenacity and a certain measure of determination in my corner and in the end I was also fortunate enough to have worked side-by-side with a whole host of well, (mostly) men — cellarguys and winemakers – who were patient, helped me work through my greeness and taught me a hell of a lot (whether they know it or not). 

   “Learn how to use my hands….”

  What did I learn?  How about how to drive a forklift in tight spaces; how not to drive a forklift in tight spaces; how to clean-up as quickly as possible after that forklift accident; how to rack a barrel, set-up a pump, drain a tank, do a pumpover without making a complete mess, blend, operate a bottling line, and how to throw a nerf football across the cellar accurately enough to hit your unsuspecting cellarmate in the back of the head.  The list goes on and on, but what I probably learned above all else was the satisfaction of doing physical work and also to appreciate the time, thought, effort and patience it takes to make great wine.

   “Started seeing the whole as a sum of it’s parts….”

  I’ve come full circle now and I find myself teaching the same things to our crew here that all those guys taught me many years ago, and because of them and the example they set for me, I tell myself that I, too, must be patient because I started out having to be taught how to use cellar equipment and how to not screw things up.  All of this serves to remind me that in the end I’m only another cog in the gear, or, if you prefer, another grape in the bunch, but also that great wine not only comes from great grapes, but great teamwork as well. 

  So, anyway, I heard the Indigo Girls sing “Hammer and a Nail” on the radio this morning, and it reminded me of what I enjoy most about winemaking:  being active, getting my hands dirty, and enjoying the people I work with.

  I gotta get out of bed
  Get a hammer and a nail
  Learn how to use my hands
  Not just my head
  I think myself in a jail
  Now I know a refuge never grows
  From a chin in a hand
  And a thoughtful pose
  Gotta tend the earth
  If you want a rose

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  Wine Additives — Where should We Draw the Line?

  April 10th, 2006 by Annette

   This post is in response to Bill’s comments to my post “Pinot for Everyone Else, Part II”, below:

• caveman Says:
  April 6th, 2006 at 6:45 pm e

• “Annette,
  Nice to see some winemakers denoucing the use of Mega P. While i can understand the need for ‘tweaking’ wines for acidity or chapitalizing (ma nature doesn’t always co-operate like she should), but what is behind the mega P additive. It is simply cosmetic? Is is they don’t want the tannin and tehy don’t do the full press to extract the color. I have drunk many a burgundy that was as clear as Rosé but had as much if not more amplitude than most of this dark , foreboding Pinots. I have become a bit obssessed with the additive -manipulation question. Where do you stand on acidification, reverse osmosis and the like? Where do you draw the line?
  Bill”

  Hi Caveman Bill,
  Thanks for your comment.  First of all to make sure everyone understands this term, chapitalization (adding sugar to winegrapes before or during fermentation) is not done here in California, but is done in Burgundy depending upon the season.  As for tartaric acid:  I have to use tartaric acid (a natural acid found in high amounts almost exclusively in grapes) in California to make decent wine, and I don’t know of any winemaker in California who doesn’t.  It is just simply a necessary part of making wine here. 

  Over the years, in some of the wineries I have worked in, I have experimented with using oak tannins, grape tannins, oak chips, color extracting enzymes, blending varietals together to achieve a certain effect, etc.  Throughout all of this I have come to this point in my winemaking philosophy — keep it as simple as I can, but use some limited, modern winemaking tools when I think a certain lot of grapes require them.  So:  I add tartaric acid to grapes as a matter of course, depending upon the grapes and their acidity level. I use a minimal amount of commerically available enzymes (these are naturally occuring enzymes that help to break down the cell walls of the grapes) because I like the texture on the palate that I get from the use of these.  I use commercial yeast because I like the clean flavors and aromas that they produce.  I add nutrients at a very minimal level (these include vitamins, minerals and nitrogen components for yeast growth).  Sometimes, I use fining agents (egg white, gelatin, bentonite), most of the time I don’t.  I don’t blend different varietals together unless they are part of our “Hilltop Red” blend, and those blend components are stated on the label.  I use sulfur dioxide (“sulfites”) in wine.  A finished wine might have anywhere from 50-125ppm of sulfites depending upon the wine and how long it was barrel aged (in my opinion at this point in our evolution, it is amost impossible to make palatable wine without the use of sulfites).

  It is interesting that you mention reverse osmosis (this is a technology that can be used to remove volatile acidity or alcohol from a wine) because I had to struggle in 2004 with a decision regarding whether to use it or not.  2004 presented us with heat spikes and as a result was that we had to deal with being short on hands to pick the grapes because everyone was picking at once.  We somehow managed to escape overripe flavors, but did not escape high alcohols.  So, I thought we would have to use reverse osmosis to make a balanced Pinot, and I even went so far as to get a distilled spirits permits so that we could do the “RO” here.  But, at some point along the way, I decided to let the Pinots be however they are and not to mess with them and the comment we hear most often is that the wines are very balanced.  So:  I have decided never to use RO in my wines because in the end I want to manipulate them as little as possible.

  Every winemaker has hundreds of decisions to make for every wine in the cellar year after year.  Some of these decisions are:  How do I get my wines to ferment without any problems? (stuck fermentations are not fun and can often lead to wine with off flavors and aromas or worse)  How do I make a wine that will sell in the current marketplace?  What is my own winemaking philosophy?  How do I make a wine that is microbiologically sound and stable as well as being palatable and enjoyable?  How do I get the most aromas/flavors/texture and the best balance from these grapes?

  Technology presents us with a host of answers to these questions and every winemaker has to constantly reassess their own philosophy as new products are developed.  Also, the simple fact that we are making and selling wine in the United States creates a certain winemaking mindset.  The “Marketplace”, whether a winemaker is concious of it or not, deeply influences winemaking these days in the US.  Simply put, a winemaker has to make wines that people will, at the very least, buy, and more hopefully, will hold in high esteem.  So if a winemaker is not making wines that are successful, then in the end they probably won’t have a job (winemakers get fired all the time if they don’t get 90 points in the Spectator).  So, why not use Mega-whatever or do this or that if it helps to get a better score?……

   There are many facets to the issue beyond just wine color.  What it comes down to is this: if you were a winemaker, what would you do?  Where would you draw the line?  On the other side of it, as wine drinkers, where should we draw the line?

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  Yes, It’s Raining, and how are the Vines?

  April 6th, 2006 by Annette

  Yes, it’s raining in California.  Mudslides, levees breaking, roads washing away, trees falling…….it’s almost as if Mother Earth is trying to wash us off like a bunch of fleas.  But aside from us and our complaints about the weather, how are the vines doing through all of this?

  With Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in this area, budbreak occurred a number of weeks ago in the Salinas Valley, and within the last 10 days at Hilltop Ranch in Carmel Valley.  Budbreak is when the leaves in the buds on a grapevine “pop” open and the shoots then begin to grow.  Some vineyards I visited in the Salinas Valley recently have shoots that are 2 or more inches long already.

   March was one of the coldest and wettest months in Monterey County on record.  So, in some spots, there was a good amount of frost damage concern.  Our estate vineyard in Carmel Valley, though only about 13 miles from the ocean, can get frosty in spring, so our vineyard managers are up very earlier in the morning on those days to get the frost protection system going.  On the ranch we have a pond that is filled by well water.  When there is a frost alarm then someone has to get out of their nice, warm bed to turn on the pump that moves the water from the pond to the sprinkler system to protect all of the new buds on the vines from freezing.

                                                      

  Then, there’s the rain.  What effect does the rain have on the vines?  It is really a matter of waiting to see the effect.  The vines will probably be more vigorous and tend to produce more vegetative growth (ie leaves and shoots).  In addition to water on the ground now, there will probably be more retained water in the ground in the future, so that the vines will remain vigorous as they tap into any available groundwater.  Last year the weather in the spring was similar to what we are experiencing this year.  We had a good amount of rain, and as a result, some growers didn’t have to start irrigating until well into the season — sometimes after veraison (the point at which grapes start to turn color and ripen) — while still dealing with very strong, vegetative growth.

   Another potential effect of moisture is for the development of molds, mildews and eventually rot.  The combination of simply having more moisture in the ground and on the leaves and vine (higher humidity), as well as increased vegetative growth (less sun exposure, less potential air circulation, more contact between leaves, etc.) are conditions that can give rise to the growth of unwanted mycological villains.  So, as soon as a tractor can pass through a vineyard without getting stuck, and the weather forecast calls for clear skies for awhile, most vineyard managers will be ready to spray sulfur on the vines to make sure these things don’t take hold.

  Good vineyard managers in Monterey are used to dealing with the prospect of molds and mildews.  High quality grapes, generally, cost more here because farming costs tend to be a little higher than in other areas of the state.  Why?  Because most good growers tend to go through their vineyards more often during the growing season to spray sulfur, and maybe other fungicides or pesticides as well, as a matter of course because the climate here tends to be cooler and generally more humid due to the extreme maritime influence we experience here. 

  So, whatever the weather, growers here are generally prepared.  It is just a matter of letting Mother Nature do her thing and unveil what another growing season will bring, if she doesn’t wash us away first.

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  The Winery is a Mess, But We’re Moving Forward!

  April 3rd, 2006 by Annette

   Here are some projects we are working on at the winery:

  

  New Van

  We have all kinds of projects going on at the winery at the moment.  First, we just bought a van for the winery.  We do all of our own local distribution, so a van has become essential to keep up with all of our deliveries.  We can also haul bins to the vineyards, take grape pomace out to the vineyard to be dumped, haul barrels with it, etc.  It will be a very useful engine….oops I mean van (I have read far too many “Thomas the Tank Engine” books with my son…). 

   

                    

  Office Addition

  These are photos of the addition we are making to our office.  The winery staff is growing, and we need more space in which to work.  Today, we are re-arranging the office and putting everything in it’s new place and are finishing up the exterior of the office. 

  Laboratory 

  Also today we are installing a laboratory on a mezzanine-type stainless steel frame.  (I’ll post photos of that when we finish)  So, we are essentially putting the laboratory on a second-level to make room for equipment storage underneath.  We decided to do this rather than build a wood-framed structure because we needed something that was strong and sturdy, but needed to access the storage area from all sides, and needed something that could withstand the rigors of being in a cold, damp cellar, as well as the rigors of a wet chemistry laboratory.

   Where to Find Cima Collina Wines?

  We are picking up new accounts all the time.   Here is an updated California list:

  Fandango, Pacific Grove
  Shopper’s Corner, Santa Cruz               Clementine’s Kitchen, Monterey
  Deluxe Foods, Aptos                             Uncorked, Saratoga
  Kuleto’s, Los Gatos                               Star Market, Salinas
  The Bountiful Basket, Carmel                Sierra Mar, Post Ranch, Big Sur
  Passionfish, Pacific Grove                      Monterey Fish House
  Village Fish House                                Paradise Wine Bar
  Grasing’s, Carmel-by-the-Sea               La Playa, Carmel-by-the-Sea
  Bixby’s Martini Bistro, Carmel                Bahama Billy’s, Carmel
  Taste of Monterey                                The Market at Pebble Beach

   Oh, Yeah, We Are Supposed to be Making Wine, Here, Too

   Last, but not least:  we need to clean-up as quickly as possible so that next week we can do the springtime racking of all of our bordeaux varietals and Petite Sirah.  I don’t rack the Pinot, usually, until bottling time, but everything else seems to need a little air and sprucing up at this point.  So, next week is my goal to start racking and tasting!!

   

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