History
Luca Mancini planted the ranch between 1922 and 1924. It had fallen into neglect by the time Reichwage Winery took over the farming in 2015 and began rehabilitating it. The Historic Vineyard Society recognises the site. Ridge Vineyards made its first Mancini Ranch bottling from the 2017 vintage; Carlisle also buys here, and Joseph Swan did historically.
The Site
Sixteen acres at the corner of Piner Road and Olivet Road west of Santa Rosa, in the Piner-Olivet neighbourhood of the Russian River Valley. The vineyard sits near the Laguna de Santa Rosa, and the cold air that pools off the wetland makes it one of the last Zinfandel vineyards in the county to be picked.
Vines and Blocks
One dry-farmed, head-trained field of some twenty interplanted heritage varieties, Zinfandel and Carignane dominant, with Valdiguie, Peloursin, Cinsault and Trousseau Noir among the rest. The vines grow in a genuine mixed orchard, interplanted with walnut, apple, pear, plum and oak, which is what a working Italian-immigrant ranch of the period actually looked like.
The Wines
Ridge's Mancini Ranch bottling and Carlisle's are the wines to know: bright and high-toned for old-vine Zinfandel, which the site's late ripening explains.