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TOP SECRET SPECIAL: This wine does not carry the kind of discount that our Field Agents are used to but know this: This is an extremely high-value wine, even at its full retail price of $28. To help our agents save a bit of their hard earned spy bucks, were offering this wine with Free Shipping on orders of THREE or more bottles. Use the promotion code SPYSHIP during checkout.

Mission Codename: Playing hard to get

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Secure Cima Collina’s stellar single-vineyard Pinot Noir

Mission Status: Accomplished

Current Winery: Cima Collina

Wine Subject: 2005 Chula Viña Pinot Noir

Winemakers: Annette Hoff

Backgrounder:
For more than a month, Agent Red had tried and failed to bring us Cima Collina’s vineyard-designate Chula Viña. Wine Spies HQ gave him one final chance to land this exceptional Monterey County Pinot Noir from fabled lady winemaker Annette Hoff. Read the mission report below to see how he finally managed to snare this great wine!

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Beautiful plumy pink with clear sparkling edges

Smell – Dark cherry, toasty oak, starfruit (unusual in a Pinot Noir but certainly there!) and a mild spiciness

Feel – Very wet and somewhat cool with wonderfully soft tannins at the front of the tongue

Taste – With flavors of cherry and dark red plum, this wine has a perfectly balanced sweet fruit and tartness without the massive gunpowder that keeps some people away from California Pinot Noir.

Finish – This wine has a nice long finish with fruit-to-tart that tapers off slowly

Conclusion – Wow, am I happy that I finally scored this GREAT Monterey Pinot Noir! It blows my mind that this is a $28 wine (Wine Spies price, $23!). I blind-tasted it right alongside a $43 Monterey Pinot from another winery (I promise, we’ll never sell that wine here) and, hands down, the Cima Collina was better. With our Free Shipping on 3 bottles offer, I recommend that you stock up.

Winemaker Profile:

Annette Hoff

Annette began her winemaking career in Napa Valley under Winemaker Bill Dyer at Sterling Vineyards. In 1994 Hoff was chosen to oversee the winery’s in-house, yet self-running experimental winery. She move south in 1996 to Carneros and Saintsbury Vineyards where she took the enology position and confirmed what she’d always known: Pinot Noir was her first love.

Her fondness for Pinot drove her west, far west, in 1998 when she went to New Zealand to undertake a study of that country’s approach to Pinot Noir production working at various wineries in a freelance fashion. But it was only a few months when Estancia called and asked Annette to become the winery’s Pinot Noir Winemaker in Monterey. So, she headed west, back to the states, where she discovered a region she became convinced could be Pinot Noir and winemaking heaven. In 2004 Richard Lumpkin went looking for a winemaker as passionate about the Monterey wine region as he had become. He found Annette and asked her to manage Cima Collina and make the wines. It was the chance to apply her knowledge of winemaking and enthusiasm for artisan wine from the ground up. Annette released her first Cima Collina wines in 2005.

Mission Report:

Not every mission goes as smoothly as I would like them to. While this particular mission did not go horribly awry, it did take me an awfully long time to complete.

I first learned of Cima Collina wines from an Asset of mine, a private informant that has alerted me to more than a few great Monterey-area wines. This Asset, we’ll call him ‘_Monte_’, sent me an alert on my SpyComm device and told me to rush to try what he called Cima Collina’s ‘perfect pinot’. Included in the alert was all of the intel he had gathered on the wine, the winemaker, the vineyard and the winery. Everything sounded impressive and I trusted Monte’s judgment, so I headed to their tasting room in the village of Carmel-by-the-sea, a few miles south of Monterey.

While I pride myself on a good sense of direction, Carmel initially proved a difficult place for me. The town uses no street addresses! Instead, people navigate their way around by heading to ‘addresses’ like, “The West side of San Carlos, between Ocean and 7th, in the Paseo Courtyard, behind Kocek Jewelers”, which happens to be the Cima Collina tasting room. Well, after a few mis-turns, I finally found the tasting room, which also houses a lovely gallery where the works of local artist are on display. On tasting the wine, I was immediately impressed and knew that I should procure an allotment for our Operatives. I got the business card of the manager of the winery, and was on my way.

Rather than place the winery under further surveillance, I decided to take a more direct approach and simply ask for the wine. Sounds simple, right? Well, after extended rounds of phone-tag, I decided to visit Cima Collina at a then-upcoming tasting event in downtown Monterey. There were many wineries at this particular event and when I found the Cima Collina table, it was mobbed. After fighting my way to the front, I introduced myself to the Winemaker and explained my plight. She was sympathetic and told me to keep trying. She explained that her wines were very popular and that they had been inundated with purchase requests. So, I kept trying. And kept missing. Then at another wine event, I met the hard-to-pin-down manager himself. Because he was so busy at the event, he asked me to keep trying him.

More of the same ensued and then, finally, just yesterday we actually spoke on the phone – and we simply and jovially arranged to secure some of this fabulous Pinot Noir for our Operatives. Busy wineries don’t get that way without a reason. A busy winery is usually a sign that something special is going on. In the case of Cima Collina, it was all about their fantastic Chula Viña Pinot Noir, and this one is my favorite!

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The location of the Chula Viña vineyard can be seen in this satellite photo

a tip of the spyshades to new Operative Agent L.W. for spying our new mapping system!

Wine Spies Technical Analysis :

Appellation: Monterey

Vineyards: 100% Chula Viña Vineyards

Blend: 100% Pinot Noir

Aging: 10 Months in French Oak Barrelt, 27% new

pH : 3.5 0

TA: 6.7 5

Alcohol: 13.9%

Bottled: August 24, 2006

Production: 1891 Cases

Winemaker: Annette Hoff

Suggested Retail Price: $28

Release Date: November, 2006