Cima Collina

Archive for September, 2008

We are pretty tired here. We brought in Chula Vina Chardonnay, some Chula Vina Pinot Noir, and the remaining Tondre Pinot Noir last week, so we’ve been doing punchdowns and dealing with Chardonnay barrels foaming over and making a mess. During this time, everything gets sticky and dirty. We work in a small, compact space, so we work hard during the off-time to get everything clean. It simply is easier to work when your feet aren’t sticking to the floor.
This week will be the last push for receiving fruit. I’ve decided to bring everything in that is still hanging as I just don’t see much benefit to letting grapes stay on the vine any longer. It has been a strange year — could’ve been a pretty good year — but we just didn’t get the weather in the end to push the tannins and flavors into ripening just a bit more. I’m not sure I’ve seen a harvest like this before when we’ve had weeks of beautiful weather that didn’t go much over 85 degrees in some areas, but really cold nights. As a result, sugars didn’t increase much, tannins didn’t “ripen”, everything stood still. Anyway, we will spend a few long, cold nights destemming Pinot…..our last load will come in Saturday night.

Living Legacy

These two characters are Fred Nason (on the left) and his son Tom Nason (on the right) (photo courtesy of hummux). Tom and his wife Cara manager Hilltop Ranch, but Tom also hauls our grapes for us every harvest season. The Nason family is well-known in this area as they are descendents of Esselen Indians and, well, have been here longer than anyone else. Tom hauls our grapes for us during harvest. We all get so busy during the year that it is nice to catch-up during harvest. Fred is always entertaining. He has so many interesting stories as he has done a lot of ranching in the area, and has led innumerable horseback riding trips into the Ventana wilderness. He’s in his 80’s and looks great and is going strong. It is a pleasure to know and work with the Nasons and learn about the history of the land from them and is one of the many benefits of my job.

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I will do a winemaker’s dinner at P.F. Chang’s in Monterey tomorrow night. We will pour a variety of wines with an interesting menu, and I will even pour our newest product — our as-yet unreleased Port. Contact Dave at 831-375-0143 for reservations.

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I am one of the founding board members of the Monterey Bay Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier (LDEI). This is a marvelous organization of women involved in the culinary and wine worlds. The group is committed to advocacy, philanthropy and education in local communities related to food, hospitality and beverage industries. LDEI is now offering an online auction with many incredible items available: fabulous trips, cooking classes, culinary collectibles, gift baskets. If you enjoy food and wine or know someone who does, you are sure to find something. Bidding ends October 26!

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Very rarely do we process white grapes and red grapes on the same day. Today was one of those rare days. These pictures are dark, but it does show us pressing chardonnay from Chula Vina on the left, and destemming Pinot Noir on the right.

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Ever been out in the ocean, waiting for a wave? I have. I readily admit that I’m not a very good surfer — I’m just not brave enough. There’s something about only having a wetsuit and a boogie board between me and a set of swells that scares the hell out of me…. It’s funny because I’ve sailed around the world on a ship and have been through some ferocious, terrible, exciting storms in the Pacific, the South China Sea, and even in the Atlantic. That was scary, but a thrill I could handle and even savor. Luckily, running a winery is like being on a ship and not on a surfboard, and this year a tidal wave of grapes will wash upon us soon. Today, we are receiving Chula Vina Chardonnay, and the first of the Pinot from that vineyard as well. Most red grapes have been hanging and waiting here in Monterey– we’ve had pretty mild, beautiful weather the last couple of weeks, but today is the turning point. It will be a fast, compact harvest. Stay tuned.

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…the wind, first of all.  It has been windy in the Salinas Valley lately….but what am I saying, it’s always windy there.  Somehow, these photos do not show how windy it was.  This is a view of the Tondre Grapefield.  I love this view.  This vineyard sits on a bench above the Salinas River, west of highway 101 and Soledad, and this photo is looking east over the Salinas Valley.

Also blown away by Pommard — the Pinot clone that is.  If I had to choose one clone, it would be Pommard as it always produces what I consider a classic, elegant wine.  I get three clones of Pinot from Tondre, Dijon 667, 115, and Pommard, and the Pommard is what makes the blend standout.  We will receive only the Pommard from Tondre tommorrow.  It is ready, but the other two need another week.

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We harvested Hilltop Ranch Pinot Gris yesterday (photos of Holly, Zach & Holly, and of my hands, courtesy of hummux). There were six of us, and it took us much longer than we thought it would to harvest as there was more fruit than we had anticipated. It looked and tasted great, and was a beautiful day — sunny but breezy and not too hot. We got done late and were really tired, so saved the pressing for today. Click here to see a short, rather rough video of how we press white grapes here. It is pretty labor intensive at Cima Collina because for various reasons we didn’t plan to do a whole lot of white wines, so didn’t need a large press. This year we will press close to 15 tons in our little presses, which is a lot of work.

What’s Artisan mean to you?

Sometimes things crack me up. Can’t help it. One of those things is some recent advertising I’ve seen from a few very large wineries in the Central Coast of California that say they are, for instance the “premier artisan winery” or tout their winemaking as using “true artisan techniques”. I know that these wineries are large — they cover at least an acre of ground, some a few acres, have tank farms, and much of their harvest comes on semi-trucks carrying 20 tons at a time. What does artisan mean to you? At the end of a long day, my back, hands and feet know what artisan means, and as you can see from the video, hand-loading 15 tons of grapes into small presses is a lot of care and effort that we put into very little product. You won’t find 3″ or 4″ hoses here in our total 4500 square feet (including casegood and barrel storage). I have nothing against large wineries or the wines they make — quite the opposite. There’s a place for everyone in this business, and I appreciate what they do and how they do it. But there should also be a place for the truth. Sorry boys and girls, hate to spoil the fun, but here’s your task: as wine lovers, it’s your job to discover what the truth really is. So have at it.

“Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world have been achieved by poor men, poor scholars, poor professional men, poor artisans and artists, poor philosophers, poets, and men of genius.” — Albert Pike

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We received 6.5 tons of Coast View Chardonnay in two loads and it is all pressed, racked and in barrel. The first lot is starting to ferment “naturally”, but I added yeast to it yesterday. The second lot will be inoculated with yeast today. The weather has been cool this week, so we have a little lull right now. It should warm up again starting this weekend.

All of us will go out and pick the little bit of  Pinot Gris that is at Hilltop Ranch. I’m trying a new style with this grape this year. In the past, we’ve always just picked it with the Pinot Noir there, so it comes in with high sugar. It comes out fat, minerally and rich, but short-lived in the bottle. I’d like to try a leaner style this year to bottle in late winter when I bottle the Sauvignon Blanc.

Speaking of Sauvignon Blanc, on Monday, we should receive Cedar Lane Sauvignon Blanc. The crop is way down in that vineyard due to the late frosts we had this spring, so I will be lucky to receive 4 tons this year. This SB is musque clone, and we all enjoy working with it in the winery because it is so fragrant.

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OK, OK:  I’m Not Superwoman

Let me begin by flatly stating that I’m not invincible. There you have it. I am after all 37 (no longer 27…), have a child and husband, run a winery, and on top of that, thought I could keep up a blog, too. I’ve learned some lessons lately, and with running a small winery I will be the first to tell you, one runs into infinite opportunities to embarrass oneself or at the very least humble oneself on a daily basis….but the most important lesson I’ve learned is that I can’t do it all. Nope.  Making wine is the easy part, all the other stuff takes a tremendous amount of energy, creativity, fortitude and patience, and as a result I suffered a time of “blogger’s block”. Well, I’m back and inspired so watch out.  As I mentioned in a previous post, my blog will concentrate on harvest, with racking and bottling thrown in, but not much else for the foreseeable future, for better or for worse.  So, let me introduce the 2008 harvest:
Coast View Vineyard

I’m a California girl born and raised and I know lots of folks who move out here from back east don’t like the dry landscape this time of year, but to me they are just as beautiful as any time. I was seemingly on top of the world today at Coast View vineyard and much of the views were golden, rolling hills as far as my little eye could spy. I found Coast View through my fellow local winemaker David Coventry of De Tierra and I’m thankful to him.  This place is gorgeous — one of the most rugged, beautiful, challenging, remote vineyards I’ve visited (almost to the degree of the Sonoma Coast vineyards).  John Allen is the owner, and Tony manages it.  Tony told me today that he has been there 12 years and put in most of the fences, trenched, excavated, planted, etc. much of what is up there.  As you can see it is a “hilltop” vineyard that involves some terracing and encompasses hillsides — ie, difficult terrain to farm.  If that’s not enough, the road that leads up to the vineyard is little more than a path cut into — and sometimes hanging onto — the hillside, so all the vineyard equipment, stakes, wire, plants, had to be painstakingly brought up in small truckloads.  Needless to say, John and Tony have put in a lot of work, learned a lot about the vineyard over the last decade, and their dedication shows in both their intimate knowledge of what every vinerow has to offer and in their enthusiasm for the place.

Coast View Chardonnay at Cima Collina 

So, we are processing our first load of Chardonnay — 3.5 tons. It’s Dijon clone 95 and it’s pretty damn beautiful.  We’ll get the second and last load of 3.5 tons on Monday.  For this load, I will probably rack it to barrel tomorrow

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