Cima Collina in NYC!

January 15th, 2009 by Annette

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Happy Holidays

December 17th, 2008 by Annette

Our Tasting Room Manager, Jane Beery, is the brilliance behind our current window display in our Tasting Room. I really like this photo and had to share. She has plans for many more holiday- and season-related displays in the future, so stay-tuned.

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Great Article on Pinot Noir

December 16th, 2008 by Annette

A colleague and friend sent me the link to an excellent article by Clark Smith on Appellation America about Santa Cruz Pinot Noir. This is one of the best articles I’ve seen so far to delineate and describe what can be a somewhat vague term — Santa Cruz Pinot Noir — to most people (one of whom was myself, certainly for a long time), and if you are at all interested in Pinot Noir in general, I highly suggest you read it. There are so many microclimates and different soil types in those mountains that a profound diversity of Pinot abounds, and he explained that diversity very well. There is a section of the article where he describes clonal characteristics. I have worked with all of the clones he describes and he’s pretty much got it nailed. He also writes a commentary regarding the judgement of Pinot by those self-proclaimed critics out there. We all tend to walk around with a certain idea of what Pinot should be — but thankfully, because of Pinot’s unique inclination to mirror the characteristics of the site on which it is grown and how it is handled in the winery, I believe there is a Pinot to fit anyone’s ideal, and he does, too. Hopefully in the future, as Mr. Smith suggests in his article, wine criticism will change from final judgement in the black and white halls of criticism to a more responsible mindset of offering descriptions of wines and essentially flinging the doors of the court open and leaving the ultimate judgement to the consumer, for that afterall is the most important judgement that I know of in this business!

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We had a great time on Sunday at our “Port”, aka non-vintage “Dessert Wine” release party at our tasting room in Carmel. Yes, this is a port-like wine that we cannot call Port out of all due respect to the Portugese and their centuries-old port industry. Anyway, we had many wines and food to go with it and it was a great time! This wine is available only at our tasting and comes in 750mL bottles for $35.00/bottle. The other thing I couldn’t mention on the label (the government says that to state on the label that the wine is blended with spirits is to imply that consuming the product might make a person intoxicated…go figure) is that I blended the base with with a very nice brandy I procured from Germain Robin Distillery, and ended up making a nice fortified wine that one wine club member said was “not too sweet, not too alcoholic, and unusually complex and spicy”. There you have it….might make a great holiday gift!

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Harvest Conclusion

November 19th, 2008 by Annette

Spelunking anyone? I feel like a spelunker when I where that headlamp. I’m filling the last barrels for the 2008 vintage in this photo. It certainly was a long one for us, and I’m glad it is over. Wine quality overall seems very good. The whites are delicate and fragrant, and the reds show good varietal character so far.

I know most folks think of harvest as grapes being harvested and received, but the real work for us goes far beyond receiving grapes.  It can be a very physically wearing time, and the end of it all is, frankly, welcome.  We can resume our normal lives and actually get the weekends off.  We aren’t off the hook entirely, though, as the wines and barrels need to be monitored.  We check for the progress of malo-lactic fermentation, check on any wines that may have gone to barrel slightly sweet, and monitor any increase in volatile fermentation.  Barrels also need to be topped, additions made, white wines stirred, and all the equipment needs to be cleaned, repaired if needed, and put away.
Here’s a photo from a few weeks ago that I like.This is a picture of a red fermentor after we have drained most of the wine and before we have started shoveling the skins out of the tank and into the presses. The open space underneath is a stainless steel filter which, among other things, helps us to drain the tank.

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Upcoming Events

November 3rd, 2008 by Annette

Cima Collina will be at the Pinot Days event in Chicago on November 14th-15th. If you want to attend this wonderful event, please go to their website and enter the code “Collina” to get a 10% discount on tickets! Please be advised that the number of discounts available is limited.

Winemaker’s Dinner

I will be present and pouring Cima Collina at Christopher’s on Lincoln, in Carmel-by-the-Sea this Friday at 7:00. Christopher’s is one of my favorite local restaurants (chef owned and operated), and Christopher himself is a James Beard award-winning chef. Great food, great atmosphere, great service. Tickets are available at: montereywines.org.

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Hiatus

October 22nd, 2008 by Annette

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.

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What — more punchdowns?

October 6th, 2008 by Annette

It’s sweatin’ time here again. We brought in the rest of our Pinot Noir last week, and processed about 35 tons in 3 days. We got through that, certainly, but then the monster that rears it’s head as a result is a *@!#-load of punchdowns….needless to say, I’m not very popular around here at the moment.

Maybe we should go back to doing it the old-fashioned way as it seems like it might’ve been more fun than modern times….at least the old-timers could drink some wine and hike up their skirts while mixing-up their fermenting must!

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15 Minutes? :)

October 3rd, 2008 by Annette

Vern Fisher of the Monterey County Herald came by one day and photographed us as we processed Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on the same day. Click here to see and hear the slideshow he put together. By the way — I’d have to get my arm twisted to do both whites and reds simultaneously here, because, well, you’ll see why…..but sometimes I’m reminded that Mother Nature is stronger than me, hee hee. Anyway, I’ve long admired Vern’s photographs in the paper, and I think he was able to capture what we do here on a very busy day.

The slideshow starts out at Chula Vina….the first photo is Henry Carrasco, owner of Chula Vina…the crew is shown harvesting the Chardonnay and Pinot that we subsequently are shown processing. Chula Vina is in Chualar Canyon, BTW, and it is one of my favorite beautiful places. Enjoy…

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After Midnight

October 2nd, 2008 by Annette

We are pushing to get all of the Pinot in and destemmed. Chula Vina and Hilltop Ranch have been harvested. Palisades will be tomorrow. Holly, Hummux and I are working the night shift. There’s nothing like being sticky, tired, wet and cold after midnight….

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Moving Right Along

September 29th, 2008 by Annette

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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