Cima Collina

Archive for the ‘Winemaking’ Category

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.

• Posted in Cima Collina, Food & Wine, Harvest, News & Happenings, Winemaking, Wines
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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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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…

• Posted in Cima Collina, Harvest, In the Vineyard, News & Happenings, Winemaking
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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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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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What do winemaker’s dream about? This one dreams about tropical islands and a nice swim in a beautifully clear, warm ocean……but I also dream of Sauvignon Blanc. This time of year, that’s what I’m doing as I’m getting ready to blend our 2007 Sauvignon Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc! I love Sauvignon Blanc, especially on a warm summer’s day. Unlike other wines, I can honestly say I love all styles of Sauvignon Blanc (just had a nice Grgich S.B. tonight with dinner). Anyway, when it comes to this part of the winemaking process — blending, finishing, bottling — it just gets the gears turning in my head (and just when i worry they might be getting rusty) and gets me going. It’s exciting, envisioning how I think the wine will taste and then discover how it really turns out.

So, pictures to come in the next entry so you can see what’s goin’ on……but right now, it’s in my head, in my laboratory, and in my dreams…..

Thanks!

Thanks to all those who nominated this blog once again for the American Wine Blog Awards, vintage 2008, “Best Winery Blog” category. Much appreciated. It’s always a delight when I realize that folks read what I write here. To nominate other great wine blogs out there, or just to check out the action go to: www.fermentation.typepad.com.

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A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains….Dutch Proverb

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent….Isaac Newton

So, you might think that a winemaker must have certain attributes in order to be a winemaker: highly developed sensory skills, commitment and attention to the details, blah, blah, blah… But, as I grow older in the wine business and, I hope, wiser [luckily for me there is no qualitative measurement for wisdom], and get through yet another year of the winemaking cycle, I can’t help but to reflect on what I have come to view as the most important attribute of all: PATIENCE. Yes, that stalwart resistance to time and ambition, hopes and dreams — patience. I wait for harvest to start, I wait for a wine that is tasting off in the barrel to work through it’s adolescence, I wait for the cold, cold winter in the wine cellar to end so that I can warm my bones in the springtime sun; I wait for the wine in the bottle to come around and taste great; I wait for fermentations to finish, for TTB to approve our labels — you get the idea. Yes, I can be busy, busy with the seasonal rush and other times of the year, but most of my job is spent waiting, and not trying to drive myself too crazy in the process — this time of year is that which demands the most patience for me as it is the least active time when I spend most of my day planning, thinking, working on spreadsheets, budgets, etc. and also remembering the mistakes I made or could’ve made last year. The only way not to get crazy, or fiddle with a wine that isn’t tasting the way I like, or worry if things will turn out alright, is to adopt patience as my child and attend to it and fret over it, watch it grow, and learn from it. What have I learned (so far)? Things usually turn out alright — the wines usually end up tasting great, or as good as I had hoped, and that patience is the most valuable asset in winemaking…..maybe even in life, too.

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Here are some Cima Collina events coming up that you’ll have to wait a little while for, but I can assure you it will be worth it!

January 30, Tarpy’s “Wine Down Wednesday” will feature Cima Collina wines. We had a lot of fun last year and are looking forward to this.

February 1 Our newest product available in our tasting room– Howlin’ Good Red — will be released February 1st. This wine is a blend of various red wines (mostly Merlot, Syrah & Petite Sirah) and all profits from the sales of this wine will benefit The SPCA of Monterey County! Most who have tasted it agree that it’s worthy of howling about and it supports a good cause — what could be better than that!

Also:

Our tasting room operating hours will change slightly for the next two weeks and will be open only on January 18-20, and then on January 25-27. We will resume normal hours (open Thursday-Monday, 11-6) starting January 31.

• Posted in Cima Collina, Winemaking
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We’ve been busy finishing up and draining & pressing reds.  Here are some photos from the catwalk:

A red tank after draining & shoveling…..

A view from above of a press in action…..

Pretty messy, huh?….

A press pan….

Checking the tank.

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Fining is a process in winemaking often used to clarify wines or take unwanted materials in wine or juice out to alter the aroma, flavor, fermentability, bottle aging, color, biological or chemical stability.  The use of fining as a winemaking tool depends upon the wine, vintage, grape condition, the winery’s winemaking goals, and, of course, on the winemaker.  Various fining agents are used depending upon the type of wine and what the winemaker wants to achieve with it:  bentonite (a grey clay) is used for a variety of things from clarity in juice or wine to treating a heavily botritysed juice.  Most fining agents, though, are proteins of various molecular sizes and charges that are used to “pull out” a variety of solids or flavors.  These include:  gelatin, milk, PVPP, egg whites, or isinglass (a collagen derived from the swimbladders of sturgeon, which, as one might expect, smells quite pleasant), to name most of them.

Much Ado About Nothing?

In the wine drinking world, there does seem to be some confusion over fining as one will often see the phrase “unfined” or “unfined, unfiltered” on the back label, unintentionally implying that fining is somehow undesirable. At one time in recent history in the industry, it was a la mode to specify that a wine was not filtered or fined because these methods were said to be interventions that truly great wine did not require.  I think this attitude was mainly an overreaction to the overuse of fining in the industry’s infancy here in North America.  Nowadays, though, fining is looked upon as a sometimes necessary tool and one to be used with the lightest touch possible. 

To illustrate what fining can do to or for a wine, let me use this example:

In Shakespeare’s time — the Elizabethan era — actors in plays were male regardless of the characters they portrayed.  This meant that underneath the costume of the most mesmerizing and tragic Desdemona could be an uninteresting altogether forgettable lout of an actor, while the Fool in Lear, once stripped of his fool’s costume might altogether be sexy, leading man material (oh my).

Much the same it is with wine.  Fining, when it might be unnessary to begin with and is then performed carelessly, can strip a potentially beautiful wine into lackluster dumbness.  On the other hand, if a wine is cloudy, a little bitter or not as “focused” as one would like it to be, careful fining with the correct fining agent can remove these distracting “outer layers” from the character of the wine to expose brilliance and sophistication. 

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I got the rare opportunity taste a 1984 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet the other night.  Now, let me first state upfront that on any given day my preferred red wine is Pinot Noir, hands down.  Now that I’ve cleared that up:  this was a fabulous wine!!  Dark, black fruit, sublime texture, long finish; all the components were well integrated and seamless.  This was not a fleshy, tannic, edgy, alcoholic wine, but purely enjoyable, drinkable, well-made, aging quite well.  Quite an epiphany for me , especially when I saw on this on the label:  12.9% alcohol.  12.9%! 12.9%!  I could write a stupid little song like “Ode to 12.9%” and dance around the room. 

“Seeking Balance“

This may seem quite ridiculous to you to be so happy about this seemingly minute and insignifcant point, but to me it is a big deal.  As a relatively young winemaker who has had a career shaped during a rather turbulent stretch in the wine industry**, one of the challenges with which I struggle is deciding upon the style of wine to produce and at the same time seek a balance between all of these factors:  what a vineyard can deliver in terms of quality and style, conditions of the growing season, commercial considerations (how much of a wine to make/will it sell/will it be appreciated?). Winemaking being my job, and the wine industry being incredibly competitive, I have to find a way to be successful, but these days one can be pulled in so many directions in order to make a wine that will thrive in the marketplace.  For instance, big, alcoholic wines have drawn much recent acclaim and lots of money and top scores.  With a eye on job security and success, I have queried myself about whether I should follow this path.  The problem, though, with making bold, over-the-top wine is that I don’t necessarily like drinking it, and the purist in me doesn’t think they deserve much merit (the optimist in me says that if I don’t like them, then others don’t either).  So, I choose to make wines I prefer to drink and, overall, that style is food friendly and restrained, but this style of wine is not immediately obvious, doesn’t jump out of the glass and grab one by the nose, and takes someone with a trained palate, or at least someone who is tired of other wines, to appreciate. 

So, quite honestly, to taste a refined wine such as this Monte Bello Cab not only renews my enthusiasm for wine, but helps me sleep at night, too.  Afterall, Ridge is one of those pillars in the industry — they’ve been doing basically the same thing for probably close to 30 years now, and they’ve done it well.  In the long-term I hope this will prove to be a strategy worthy of following.

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**Here’s a little summary of what I deem a “turbulent” time in the wine industry:

• late 80’s through late 90’s:  most vineyards were replanted due to the AXR/phylloxera debacle.  This coincided with the availability of new clones and rootstocks, new available technology and knowledge regarding planting and maintaining vineyards as well.  Additionally, many new vineyards were planted all over California, including Southern California, the Sierra Foothills, Central Coast, and the Northern Central Valley.  Overseas, Australian practicality and prowess increased not only their wine production, but intensifed marketing efforts in the US.
• As the wine industry grew during this time, corporations bought-out smaller wineries left and right; winemakers played “musical chairs” as they were offered bigger and better positions within these new mega corporations.  At this time, “cult cab” became big.
• In addition to the then-existing wineries, even more players entered into wine production from outside the industry which influenced all areas: package design, wine style, marketing and sales campaigns, pricepoints, etc.
• studies that proved wine is good for health started to get media attention

 

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