Bondi Home Ranch

The Sebastopol farm where Gemma and Paulo Bondi settled in the late 1890s, where the first potato crop grew a foot long, and where a fifth generation now lives in the original farmhouse.

History

Lee Martinelli Sr.'s maternal grandparents bought the ranch in the late 1890s and planted potatoes in the Gold Ridge soil, later shifting to the apples that made uncle Tony Bondi one of the county's biggest ranchers. The family planted Pinot Noir in 1998, and the original Bondi farmhouse still houses a fifth-generation Martinelli.

The Site

The ranch sits in the Green Valley of Russian River Valley at Sebastopol, on classic Goldridge loam and clay in the coolest, most fog-prone corner of the valley, a site early to flower and famously late to ripen.

Vines and Blocks

Seventeen acres of Pinot Noir planted 1998 in clones 943, 828, 777 and 667 on 101-14 rootstock, with Calera and 115 material in the Water Trough rows.

The Wines

The Bondi Home Ranch Water Trough Vineyard Pinot Noir, a designate running since the early 2000s, brings Green Valley's signature to the Martinelli range: higher-toned, red-fruited wine with the cool snap of the fog belt, from ground the family has farmed for more than one hundred and twenty five years.