History
Eddie and Jane Pisoni built Pisoni Farms into a Salinas Valley produce operation in the early 1950s, and in 1979 the family bought a 280 acre parcel up in the Santa Lucia Range, meaning to graze cattle on it. Gary Pisoni planted vines there instead in 1982. For the first commercial decade the family sold fruit and nothing else; the debut Pisoni Estate Pinot Noir came in 1998, the Lucia label followed in 2000 and the Lucy rosé in 2003. Mark Pisoni farms the ranch today and his brother Jeff makes the wine. The origin of the Pisoni selection is trade legend rather than record: cuttings said to have been carried home from Vosne-Romanee in a suitcase, a story the family has never confirmed or denied. The selection has no certified provenance and is not registered with Foundation Plant Services, which is precisely why it is called a heritage selection and not a clone.
The Site
Roughly 40 acres are planted across twelve farmed blocks on steep, ridged mountain ground running between about 900 and 1,300 feet, among the highest plantings in the appellation and far above the benchland vineyards along River Road. Published acreage runs anywhere from 36 to 50 depending on the source; 40 is the family's own current accounting. The soils are decomposed granite carrying schist, quartz and gneiss, shed off the granitic Salinian block, thin and fast draining. Water was the founding problem: Gary Pisoni trucked it to the vines for years and drilled a series of failed wells before a dowser sent him to the highest point on the property, where the sixth attempt finally struck through hundreds of feet of granite.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir leads, with Chardonnay and Syrah alongside it, and Mount Eden and Swan material grows beside the Pisoni selection. The original 1982 planting is own-rooted, and New Block is a replant of that first five acres. Susan's Hill sits high on the property and takes the hardest wind on the ranch, which is why it carries Syrah rather than Pinot Noir. Mommy's and Hermanos lie in the folds below, Elias and Mario Alto run along the ridge, and Lino, Tina, Camper and Big Block complete the named set. Older accounts describe the ranch as thirty small farming blocks between half an acre and seventeen acres, which is the same ground counted more finely.
The Wines
Pisoni Estate bottles a single Pinot Noir each vintage in the hundreds of cases, with Lucia carrying the broader range of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. ROAR, Kosta Browne, Patz and Hall, Testarossa, Siduri and Capiaux have all bottled the designate, Capiaux specifically from the own-rooted parcel. Paul Lato's Lancelot Pinot Noir and East of Eden Chardonnay are his own cuvee names for Pisoni fruit, not blocks of the vineyard.