History
The Martinellis met Turley in 1991 when she was planting Marcassin next door, and she became their winemaker in 1992. When Lee Sr. picked up the 40 acre piece butting the Charles and Dillon ranch two years later, she persuaded him to plant rather than hunt it, guiding six acres of Pinot Noir into the ground in 1995. Marcassin's own Blue Slide Ridge bottlings from this fruit, made at the Martinelli winery, ran from 1999 through 2011, when Turley turned to her own vineyard alone, and the designation reverted fully to Martinelli.
The Site
Six planted acres on the second ridge in from the Pacific, on Josephine and Goldridge clay loams over the blue rock that names the place: below the vineyard a sheer cliff drops to Marshall Creek, cerulean shards jutting from the earth. The ground was once prime sheep pasture.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir only, in clones 115, 667, 777 and the X Clone on 101-14 and 3309.
The Wines
Martinelli's Blue Slide Ridge Pinot Noir, around 237 cases in recent vintages, is the family's Fort Ross-Seaview flagship, deep, sappy coastal Pinot from the site Turley ranked with her own.