History
Giuseppe Martinelli bought this already-planted ground in 1889, a few years after arriving from Tuscany, making it one of the oldest continuously producing vineyards in North America. From the early 1980s until 1992 Williams Selyem bought fruit from it, and the Williams Selyem Jackass Vineyard Zinfandel became one of the founding wines of the modern heritage-vine movement .
The Site
Roughly six to eight acres of rolling bench at the base of the hill, on Franciscan and Goldridge soils of fractured bedrock and clay loam. The vines are visible from above as individual head-trained dots rather than wire rows.
Vines and Blocks
Dry-farmed, head-trained Zinfandel on St. George rootstock, planted in the 1880s.
The Wines
Estate Jackass Vineyard Zinfandel is the structured, black-fruited counterpart to the hill above it, carrying the same century-old concentration with a shade more flesh from the deeper ground.