Cima Collina

Archive for the ‘Harvest’ Category

 

Working starts to make you wonder where

the fruits of what I do are going 

He says in love and war all is fair 

But he’s got cards he ain’t showing 

Sunshine come on back another day 

Pretty soon I’ll be singing 

This old world, gonna turn around

Brand new bells will be ringing

—Jonathan Edwards “Sunshine“

We are spoiled here in California compared to other winemaking regions.  Most every year the weather is pretty predictable (dry and relatively warm) and we can usually count on getting ripe grapes with few exceptions.  But any little deviation from our usual weather pattern can make some of us spoiled Californians turn into questioning, complaining brats.  I was one of those “brats” this year and complained quite a bit when our Indian Summer didn’t show at it’s usual time (mid-September thru October) and worried that we wouldn’t have a very good year (“Oh No!”).

In contrast to other regions (like Burgundy, Bordeaux or Oregon) that have to deal often with summer rains and frost during harvest.  Our summer season here tends to be quite moderate — we get lots of fog during the day and at night, especially when the Central Valley is burning up as that weather pattern in the interior seems to pull the cool moisture up and out of the ocean here.  This makes for a relatively cool summer and is what makes this growing region so wonderful for grapes as these cool summers essentially extend and improve flavor development.  But, for those of us who like to see and feel the sun a little and also think that our harvest depends upon our Indian Summer, this was not such a good thing.  But on second thought, maybe that’s not necessarily so……

This harvest has changed my views a little on what is required to ripen our grapes here as our Indian Summer hasn’t appeared until recently, after we have finished with harvest.  We had an incredibly long growing season this year with very few really hot days, and as a result there was, admittedly, more rot in many vineyards, but otherwise there were great flavors….incredible flavors…..that warrant an exclamation of “This is one great winemaking year!”.

And now, today, I awoke to a brilliantly glorious Indian Summer day, on election day no less, after a great harvest, I have to say I’m in a great mood – positive and hopeful, with great expectations of how the wine we are putting into barrels right now will develop and blossom into something just a little different, a little more beautiful and maybe a little more mysterious than last year.                    

 

 

 

 

 

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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. 

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Well, we have brought in almost all of our Pinot.  We will bring in the last 5 tons on Monday from Chula Vina, and that will be it for Pinot.  We will have a little Merlot and Syrah coming in the next 10 days, and that will be it for 2006.

We destemmed Tondre Grapefield Pinot today.  It came in a little short in tonnage than I had hoped, but tastes really good and has great color.

I’ve been driving through the Salinas Valley and there is still quite a bit of fruit hanging out there, so I’m not sure what other wineries are going through right now.  It got quite cold last night, and yesterday and today were quite warm, and if the weather keeps up it would be a very good thing.  Some vineyards have had a bad problem with botrytis this year due to the weather, but we have largely escaped having to deal with any rot at all, luckily enough.

I am very happy with this vintage, and in some ways even happier with this year than last.  I have been able to pick when I thought I needed to based on what I tasted in the vineyard, and am very happy with the results.  We are getting good color and tannin development in the Pinots, and wonderful, heavenly aromas and flavors in the whites.  Overall and great if not excellent year for these wines!

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When I worked in Napa, it was pretty easy to come by good food during harvest.  One had only to go into town and go to Vallergas to get a pretty decent sandwich and there are some great Mexican restaurants in Napa Valley if one had a hankering for a burrito.  Some folks even delivered home-made food to wineries and their hungry workers and some wineries supplied catered meals during the crush also.  But, alas,  the epicurean landscape here in Marina is mighty different of that in the great wine land to the north.  There is a fantastic Thai restaurant here and a pretty good deli, and an alright Mexican place.  But — by and large– this is fast food heaven, which isn’t so good if one isn’t a fast food gourmand. 

 What to do?  How do you feed a bunch of wine workers who’ve been working for 8 hours and have at least 8 more to go?   For a few harvests we tried take-out, but that only lasts for so long before everyone gets tired of the same old stuff day after day.  Finally this year I decided enough suffering(!) and that I would do the cooking for the crew this year.  So, we got a hot plate and dishes and silverware and Voila! we were good to go.  I’ve been cooking up stews and soups and will soon do a pot roast, and everyone says this is a good thing.  We are all able to take a break during crush, sit down together with a beer and a hot meal and have a good time.  So, this is how to feed a harvest crew…..after all the crew is making the wine, and the happier and healthier we all are, the better the wine will be!

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What is so interesting about going through wine country here in Monterey is that there is so much else going on besides grapegrowing.  I’ve learned a great deal about row crop agriculture from driving by every field and seeing what they are doing.  How many times do folks get the opportunity to witness a sea of asparagus in glorious feather-like leaf in the fall, or broccoli growing in gray-green brilliance?  How about romaine lettuce emerging just next to a pinot noir vineyard?  Seeing these things makes me appreciate the diversity of this area and reminds me that although the majority people in the world think of California as a hip, palm tree-covered, fast-moving, metropolitan-centered state, this is really what California is all about…..agriculture and all of the hard work that goes along with it.

Tondre Grapefield

I visited Tondre Grapefield in the Santa Lucia Highlands, and here are some photos.  We will pick this pinot noir on Monday, and it is tasting very good.

 

The vineyard is owned by the Alarid family who has farmed this land for quite a long time.  They grow broccoli, lettuce, beans, and lemons, to name just a few crops.  As the story goes, they never really knew what to do with the land that the vineyard is now planted on as it wasn’t a whole lot good for anything else.  Then one day, Tondre, the father of Joe Alarid, the vineyard manager, had a heart attack.  While recovering at home — and after hearing about the health benefits of red wine — he decided to plant a vineyard, and took advice from neighbors on how to do it.  Today, Tondre is healthy and doing well, and Joe does a great job of managing not only the winegrapes, but all the other crops they grow as well.  They named the vineyard “Tondre Grapefield” to honor both Tondre and their farming heritage.

Watch Out for Grape-eating Wild Dogs!

OK, maybe not so wild in the conventional sense.  This is Sweetie, and she is a Rat Terrier and premier grape sampler on-the-job.  She also does well keeping the floors in the winery free from grapes, as well. 

 

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To recap what has happened recently:

Our Sauvignon Blanc is fermenting away and smells great.

We brought in Chula Vina Chardonnay on Sunday.  Wonderful year for Chardonnay.  We pressed it all on Sunday and it went down to barrel yesterday.  It is clean and very tasty and will be inoculated with yeast today.

We have been harvesting and destemming Pinot and Pinot Gris from our own estate ranch in Carmel Valley, Hilltop Ranch.  It is beautiful!  Tastes incredible and is very, very clean.  See photos below:

 

This is our second year of harvesting from the ranch and so far this Pinot is proving to be an interesting fruit to work with.  It almost “acts” like Syrah when fermenting:  it is very dark and somewhat tannic (for pinot) and it requires a lot more air when fermenting than Pinot should.  It has a great deal of blueberry flavors, something I attribute to the soil, see photo below:

This soil is a calcareous sedimentary rock, and is what most of the vineyard is planted on.  It has taken quite awhile to get the plants established in this soil, and so we waited until the 5th year to take our first crop off of this vineyard.  Appolonio, our vineyard manager, does almost everything by hand, as this is an organic vineyard, and, I have found, he knows the characteristics of practically every vine.  We are still working to gain balance in this vineyard as the site is very hilly and rocky, but every year it looks better.

More Reviews!!

Here’s the latest review of our 2004 Chardonnay from Connoisseur’s Guide to California Wine:

 

“Deep, dense and extracted in the nose with plentiful apple-like fruit sitting beneath its broad sweep of sweet oak, this bottling fully lives up to its promise on the palate with rich and expansive flavors that precisely mirror its expressive aromas.  Its long and very flavorful finish shows a slight bit of hardness just now, but this one will shine with the likes of roast duck or salmon in rich sauces, and those with the patience to set it aside for another year will find a lavish and luxurious wine waiting that will have come into its own.”

Thanks Charles Olken.  I’m glad you like it.  This wine is available only at:

Village Fish House, Carmel Valley

Passionfish, Pacific Grove

Star Market, Salinas

Sierra Mar at the Post Ranch, Big Sur

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We pressed Sauvignon Blanc on Friday and Saturday.  Here are some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dick and Tanya are sorting grapes; James is cleaning up and here is a future cellar master directing all the operations.  We fill the presses by hand and sort grapes as we go.  It is a slow process but fun and we were all excited to be started with harvest.  I liked the flavors of the juice, and it is now fermenting happily away.

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Tanya Stuurman, from Paul Cluver Winery in South Africa, is working with us this harvest season.  She has had four years winery experience and is here to not only experience winemaking here at Cima Collina but also to experience the US as well.  She and her fellow interns spent a few weeks in Virginia learning about grapegrowing and winemaking in the US.  Then 5 interns stayed on in Virginia while 5 came out to Monterey to participate in the crush here. 

This program is sposored by the South African Wine Industry Trust, which is an organization dedicated to the empowerment of black South Africans as well as the promotion of the South African wine industry in general.  This is the first year this internship program has taken place in the US — France has hosted interns for a number of years already — and we are really excited to be a part of it. 

There are astounding changes happening in South Africa in general right now.  Through the “Black Economic Empowerment” initiatives, little by little, black south africans have been able to take ownership of wineries and winery properties to become part of the economic mainstream of the country.  Before, during apartheid, the majority of the population — black and colored south africans — were pushed into the periphery of the economy and worked in mostly menial, low-paying jobs.  Now, combined with higher educational and vocational programs, and internship programs such as this, more folks are able to move up in the ranks.

Tanya is living with me and my family, so it has been interesting to talk with her about South Africa today.  I am particularly interested because I visited South Africa in 1991 during apartheid, albeit toward the very end, and was able to witness firsthand the culture of the country then.  It is amazing how much has happened in 15 years there.

As these things happen, the interns arrived here in a year when the harvest is uncommonly late in California.  I think only two of the interns (Lefa at Blackstone and Philani at Scheid) have been working harvest; the rest of us have been waiting.  Luckily, we do have Sauvignon Blanc coming in today, so Tanya and I will be loading the presses tonight! 

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I visited Cedar Lane vineyard yesterday and the Sauvignon Blanc we will get from them this year is tasting great, so we will most likely bring some in this week.  Finally — harvest is starting.  I’ve never experienced such a late harvest.  But having a season like this isn’t bad, necessarily, and can be actually quite good.  I’m tasting a lot of fruit out there that is very, very tasty, and amazingly enough, a lot of it seems to be developing great flavor before the sugars accumulate.  The tannins in the skins are developing, stems are lignifying, and the seeds are getting brown, while Brix readings are 21 or 22.  This is wonderful and is shaping up to be a great vintage, in my humble opinion.

And, yes, I’m excited to say that we are starting a Sauvignon Blanc program here this year.  I haven’t made Sauvignon Blanc since I was in New Zealand and I am eager to use some of the techniques I learned there about how to handle Sauvignon Blanc to get the most out of it.  More to come, so stay tuned…….

 I visited Tondre Grapefield in the Santa Lucia Highlands yesterday, as well.   Joe Alarid does a nice job of managing this vineyard, and this year it looks and tastes great.  I walked the rows of Pinot Noir clones 667 and 115 that we will take from that vineyard and it is tasting great, but Brix is still in the low 20′s.  The tannins have already developed in the skins and is no longer gritty or chalky, the seeds are browing, and the stems lignifying.  Although I didn’t test the acid, it seemed that it was still pretty high, so I’m anticipating we will get a nice acidity when we actually do harvest.  If the weather continues the way it has been (cold at night, mild mornings and warm afternoons), then we probably won’t harvest this for at least another 2 weeks. (Sorry I’m short on the pictures today – it is difficult to have dirty fingers, a sticky refractometer, and try to handle a camera and take a decent photo all at the same time.)

I will visit Chula Vina again (probably tomorrow) and will report soon.

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• Carmel Valley, CA 93924
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