The Spring Lucia Release has arrived. Farming the 2015 vintage took faith, patience and a great deal of fortitude.

1. WORKING WITH NATURE:
Farming the 2015 Vintage

2. “we should remember that
winemaking is farming,
and farmers work at the
mercy of the weather.”
Winemaking is Farming.
Floods, drought conditions, blistering sun,
hard frosts: working the land is not just a
noble occupation, but a challenging one. “The
farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t
still be a farmer,” humorist Will Rogers often
quipped. Growing requires faith and patience
and a great deal of fortitude, especially when a
difficult growing season results in a scant crop.
Most of us understand the role our constantly-
changing climate plays in shepherding fruits
and vegetables to our plates. It’s easier to forget
that vintners face the same challenges.
Farmers and winemakers for three generations,
the Pisoni family possess the fine-tuned
awareness of sun and season necessary to coax
plants to bear the fruit that eventually pours
like rubies and liquid gold into our glasses. The
happy results of this transformation are as
beautiful as they are palate-pleasing. Yet while
“grape growing is often romanticized,” vintner
Jeff Pisoni insists, “we should remember that
winemaking is farming, and farmers work at the
mercy of the weather.”
Growing up next to the vegetable farm
established by their grandparents in the Salinas
Valley and the vines father Gary planted in the
Santa Lucia highlands, gambling upon the arid
soil in this range, Jeff and brother Mark are
intimately familiar with the risks and rewards of
working in partnership with Nature. Observing
how their family rotated short-term crops such
as lettuce and broccoli allowed the brothers to
study how vines—plants, after all—are best
cultivated. Watching vegetables root and flower
encouraged Jeff and Mark to grapple early on
with complex growing issues of irrigation and
sustainability.
As winemakers, the brothers have followed
their father’s lead in growing a more enduring
crop. “... volgoque veritas iam attributa vino
est”—“In wine, there’s truth,” naturalist and
writer Pliny the elder avowed in his first-century
AD Natural History. One of the truths Jeff
Pisoni knows first-hand is that vines are abiding
presences on the land. “This understanding
often leads vintners to see vines as kin to
people,” he muses. “We keep the grapes we
harvest in trust for wine and then hold the
wine in cellars for years to age.” In this sense,
the fruits of the vine cue memory, the dates
vintners record on barrels much like the height
marks parents keep to record their children’s
progress toward adulthood.
Front Cover: Mark Pisoni evaluates the soil of the vineyard floor.
Soil composition, moisture, cover crop and the trillions of microbes that
make up the microflora are all critical to grape and wine quality.
Left: Young vines begin their tender dance with morning’s
dewdrops. These silvery pearls bring welcome moisture—but also
the potential hazards of mildew and botrytis.
Opposite page, clockwise from top right: A cover crop of
rye, vetch and clover provide key nutrients, such as nitrogen,
to the complex soils of the vineyards.
Technology in the vineyard: Weather stations help us monitor
alterations in the climate as well as the effects of these hourly and
daily shifts on the soil and the vines.
A scant crop of Pinot Noir awaits picking
during the 2015 harvest.
An up-close view of a cluster during the delicate flowering stage.
2015’s inclement spring prevented many of the flowers from
fertilizing and forming grape berries.

3. When Nature Challenges Winemaking.
While it’s tough to lose any crop, the long-term connection vintners have with
their land and vines can be sustaining during low-yielding seasons. Jeff recalls one
of his father’s favorite stories. “The first time Dad ‘dropped fruit’ (to reduce the
yield in an otherwise high-yielding vintage), my grandfather came to the vineyard
and was shocked to see bunches of grapes on the ground. It took him a long time
to accept the idea that this kind of cutting would create a better fruit, because he
came from a lifetime of farming produce that was rewarded by yield.”
Weather can play a part in cutting yield, too. The 2015 season will long be
remembered—across all of California—for the meagre crops it produced. In cold,
coastal parts of the state such as the Santa Lucia highlands, the grape yield was
especially lean. Mark comments, “2015 had some of the lowest yields we’ve ever
seen on our ranches—about half of what we normally obtain.” “People sometimes
expect farming in California to be very consistent,” Jeff adds, “but we have our
weather swings too, especially in areas impacted by the coast.” The 2011 growing
season, which was cold and came late, was particularly challenging. The following
three years saw much more consistent weather, and the Pisoni vines produced
average yields from 2012-2014. But in the spring of 2015, Jeff explains, “we were
deluged with wet and windy weather, which drastically limited fruit flowering.”
Coulure—the vines’ metabolic response to weather conditions that discourages
grapes from developing properly—or “shatter,” as it’s frequently called in
English—occurs most often in spring, and
can be triggered either by abnormally high
temperatures or cold, inclement weather.
Vines with coulure produce substantially
smaller yields. The cloud cover that
hovered over the Santa Lucia highlands in
the spring of 2015 resulted in coulure, as
well as the disproportionate shedding of
berries that follows on the heels of shatter.
But there’s a silver lining to the vintner’s
cloud,becausesmallvintagesoftenproduce
very high quality wine. “When vines have
less fruit,” Jeff explains, “the plant can
focus more of its energy toward ripening,
which allows fuller development of the
grapes’ tannins, and more concentrated
flavor.” Low yields are also more gentle
on the vines. Scanter fruit, as in 2015, can
be emotionally and financially challenging,
but the light harvest allows the vines to
rest and regroup. A “lean year” in fruit production is part of the intricate self-
regulating system of the vines, much the way a leaf infected
with insects prompts the release of pheromones that allow
the plant to defend against attack.
This fine-tuned response to Nature’s unpredictability
provides a consolation to wine drinkers as well. When you
uncork a bottle of one of the Pisoni family’s 2015 Soberanes
Vineyard Pinots, Syrahs, or Chardonnays, and admire the
jeweled color in your glass, remember that its rarity will be
more than equaled by the arduous tale it beautifully conceals.

4. Release Schedule
To emphasize our dedication and long-term
commitment to each of our three Santa
Lucia Highlands vineyards, we offer our
Lucia and Pisoni wines according to the
vineyard from which the grapes are sourced:
SPRING:
Soberanes Vineyard wines and
Lucia “Santa Lucia Highlands” cuvées
SUMMER:
Garys’ Vineyard wines
FALL:
Pisoni Vineyards wines
Lucia Vineyards & Winery
PO Box 908
Gonzales, CA 93926
ph: 800.946.3130
fax: 831.675.2557
luciavineyards.com
Spring 2017
Writer: Anne Goldman
Photography: Jeff Pisoni
Design: Chelsea McKenna
SOBERANES VINEYARD SELECTIONS
2015 Lucia Chardonnay SoberanesVineyard: A vibrant greenish-gold
color in hue, the Soberanes Chardonnay harmonizes restraint and intensity.
Its aromatics, soft at first, deepen into orange blossom and yellow peach.
Undertones of minerality showcase the loamy, rocky soils of Soberanes
Vineyard, whose bracing, chilly mornings show in the wine’s freshness. We
used a light hand in the winery to foster its development, stirring the lees as
little as possible during this vintage’s 15-month aging process. The result is
a wine of great density and structure on the palate, with a holistic balance
of fruit and texture. Great tension in its broad, expansive finish will lead to
excellent cellaring for several years to come.
2015 Lucia Pinot Noir Soberanes Vineyard: Perfumed aromatics unfurl
from the glass like blooming flowers. Here, cassis, red fruits and incense meet
undertones of wet forest floor. We included whole clusters during fermentation
to add the exotic spice that composes the background of this bouquet. One of
our lowest yielding sites in 2015, Soberanes Vineyard produced fruit with a big
tannin profile that is at once mouth-coating and firm. Thanks to its more robust
tannins and acid, the wine will age beautifully through the next decade.
2015 Lucia Syrah Soberanes Vineyard: From the granite-laced soils of
Soberanes Vineyard, this Syrah is as refined and delicate as it is intense. Nimble
floral aromas lead over a core of slate, peppercorns and blackberry. Layered
spices integrate a rich dark fruit, which, slightly stringent, offers hints of how
gracefully the wine will age. This vintage, the vines produced a tiny yield of
less than one ton per acre. The resulting wine was fermented with 100% whole
clusters and aged in 60-gallon and 132-gallon barrels that will contribute to a
slower evolution, along with great oak integration. On the finish, pleasing acid
complements firm tannins in a wine which will cellar beautifully for decades.
SANTA LUCIA HIGHLANDS CUVÉES
2015 Lucia Chardonnay: In this delightful combination from the
Soberanes and Pisoni vineyards, lower yields culminate in fruit with
intensity and focus. Racy aromatics of green apple and Meyer lemon
interweave with spring flowers and wet stone. This chardonnay’s crisp
acidity and purity of expression opens seamlessly on the palate. A long,
lingering finish, combined with minimal oak, allows a multitude of
options when paired with food.
2015 Lucia Pinot Noir: This wine showcases a combination of
fruit from the Pisoni, Garys’ and Soberanes vineyards, where yields were
generally 50% lower than normal. Despite its youthfulness, the Lucia
Pinot Noir already shows signs of finesse. The fruit offers a gorgeous
balance of acid and sugar levels, the result of cooling ocean breezes and
foggy mornings in the vineyards. Once poured, the wine releases elegant
aromas of raspberry, violets and crushed rose petal that linger in the glass.
These floral notes also persevere in the mouth, producing a rich, elongated
finish. Suave, layered tannins deliver great texture and length.
ROSÉ
2016 Lucy Rosé of Pinot Noir: In the glass, the copper-
strawberry color of this Lucy Rosé beckons with beautiful aromas of
white peach, nectarine, grapefruit and rose petal. Created from both
whole cluster pressing and saignée of Pinot Noir, the wine’s character is
clean and pure, its soft texture coaxed from the neutral barrels in which
we fermented and aged it for three months. We utilize barrels of at least
a decade in age so they are truly “neutral.” This heightens the texture
while minimizing the flavor impact of the oak. The happy result is a
wine of delightful crispness and energy.