Hello All—I’ve taken a little break here, at least somewhat. We hosted our annual harvest party at Hilltop Ranch this past Saturday. The weather was wonderful, the band—“The Furry Chaps”—a fun, local bluegrass band kept us all entertained; all in all, quite good fun. We brought in the last load of grapes on October 10—a mix of Bordeaux varietals (Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot, Malbec, Merlot) from Lockwood Oaks. I kept the Malbec separate for a possible small bottling next year, but all the others are a “field blend” in one of our bigger tanks and all of it is just now coming into the homestretch—in other words finishing primary fermentation. We have drained and pressed a few tanks of Pinot so far—as soon as I’m done with this entry, I will drain a tank—but will dedicate ourselves more to that task next week…...

Winemaker’s Dinner: Friday, November 7 at 7pm.

Yes, We’ve made a Port (all of 25 cases). I’ve had so many people ask for one, and I have played around with different varietals (traditional port varietals are difficult to come by here in Monterey—as they should be) and came up with this. I got the brandy for the fortification part of it from Germain-Robin up in Redwood Valley. Personally I do not like or drink sweet wines, and admit I had a difficult time separating my personal and professional judgements on this one, so this is neither as sweet nor as alcoholic as a traditional port. I have poured it at a few events recently and people seem to really like it—even those like myself who don’t like sweet wines. So, I’m getting a label created for it and it will go on sale in our tasting room sometime mid-November.

A Sea of Blue…..

Here is Cara putting the finishing touches on our 2005 Hilltop Ranch Pinot Noir.  We are excited about this wine as it is the first vintage from our own estate vineyard in Carmel Valley.  This will be a special package and will be released in November 2007…...

 Happy New Year to One and All!

Recap of recent events:

We had a fun-filled, riotous evening at the Cima Collina Winemaker’s New Year Dinner at La Playa Hotel in Carmel on Sunday night (damning and embarrassing pictures forthcoming, I promise).  There was music and dancing throughout the evening, and we premiered our own estate 2005 Pinot Gris (of which we made only 35 cases) that night .  Ashton and Frank are the wine directors there and were graceful hosts and share an off-the-wall sense of humor which I realy appreciate.  Thanks La Playa for organizing this event and thanks for your unflagging support as well!

 Cima Collina was poured at the Pac Rep’s New Year’s party and I hear that all had a great time.  At last count, 230 folks attended, but more were expected, and the evening was filled with musical performances, food, and, of course Cima Collina.  We hope the folks at Pac Rep have enjoyed working with us as much as we them.

 Now, over at chezPim, Menu for Hope raised over $60,000 for the United Nations World Food Programme.  This figure was well and above their goal of $35,000…...Congratulations to Pim and all the folks who organized and participated.  Events such as this prove the strength and commitment of the blogging community.

Coming Up!

Tarpy’s, a fine and fun local restaurant will feature Cima Collina wines in it’s “Wine Down Wednesday” event on Wednesday, January 24th.  Call them at 831-647-1444 for more information.

At Grasing’s on January 31 will be the First Annual Cima Collina Winemaker/Wild Mushroom Dinner.  Seating is very limited for this event, so please call them at 831-624-6562 for reservations.

Yes, it is that time for draining tanks, shoveling, filling barrels.  Here are some photos from yesterday’s pressing of Pinot Noir from Chula Vina.  Here’s Will in the tank and James getting the equipment set-up. 

....from the grasp of “bottling” and all the time, energy, deadlines and nerves it takes to prepare and get through it.  I had luck holding my right hand and work tugging on the other, which left me without a free hand with which to type.  But now, I’m back.  Whew!  No matter how much one plans and prepares for blending, finishing and bottling wine, there are always fires to put out—well, not literally, thank goodness —but at the very least, there usually seems to be machines breaking down, mistakes, snafus, misjudgements, oversights.  The thing is, even with all of that stuff happening, everyone works together, the job gets done and everything works out well.  Go figure.  Here are some photos: 

 

Harvest Update

As I posted a few weeks ago, I will start a harvest diary-type of blog as soon as harvest starts.  It looks like a later start to harvest this year, so stay-tuned for that.

Cima Collina Folks

It is about high time I started highlighting all of the people around here who keep it all clean, make it run, and fix it when it breaks, and will do that soon, as well.  We are also looking forward the the arrival of our harvest intern—Tanya—from Paul Cluver Winery in South Africa.  Yes, South Africa.  So, we will have a little international spice coming to this little winery which should be good fun.