In early December, as the sun sank low in the sky, dropping daytime temps quickly from 60 something to barely 50, I took a rather exciting drive through the broccoli fields of Gonzales to the fall-colored hills of the Santa Lucia Highlands, with Mark Pisoni: farmer, father, son, grandson and winegrower. He is first and foremost a farmer, and his love of the land, this fruitful, beautiful land, is evident in everything he says and does. Oh, he does love wine, but one gets the impression that he would choose a jar of his wife’s apple butter over a bottle of chardonnay if that were the last choice to be made.
Mark lives in a beautiful old farmhouse with a root cellar filled with wine – dust-covered, musty-looking old bottles, quietly resting on even more dust-covered shelves, surrounded by empty bottles that read like a who was and really still is who of the great Burgundy houses: Echezaux, Le Tache, Gevery-Chambertin, and modern legends like Kosta-Browne, Roar, Testarossa, Lucia…oh, yeah, and Pisoni.
Cases of liquid gold resting beneath the growing roots of broccoli and lettuce, and the pitter patter of children’s feet as they scamper across the same oak floor that Mark and his brother Jeff (the winemaker) did, and their Dad (Gary) before them. Mark is proud to have known his grandparents, and still has two grandmothers living just down the road in Gonzales, town of.
He and his wife, Quinn, who studied fruit science, have two children: son Davis, 5 and daughter Avery Ann, 5 months. They met at Davis. Avery is Quinn’s last name. They met courtesy of their roommates who were themselves trying to get together: it worked out a little differently than planned. Nobody’s complaining.
Mark works hard at the veggie farming, even though he only has 500 acres, which is small for Salinas. “But it keeps me busy, and I love this life, this old house and the kids love it, too. They eat vegetables like other kids eat junk, and the love it.” He stopped the truck to cut some of the most beautiful broccoli I’ve seen. He’s planting lettuces now: a bit easier this year than last, due to the very dry December. We both prayed it wasn’t the beginning of the D word, because we are both water people.
Climbing into the vine-covered hills, we visited the new Soberanes vineyard, which the Pisoni’s planted jointly with Gary Franscioni. It is 39 acres, was planted in 06 and 07, and just produced its first and second crop respectively. It’s primarily chardonnay (old Wente clone), pinot (a mix of heritage and Dijon clones) and syrah (Alban clones).
It’s right next to Garys Vineyard. If you held ten-foot poles in each hand you could touch vines in both. This is Mark’s first vineyard planting experience, and he’s jazzed about it. Unlike broccoli which you can do twice a year, you only get one chance to plant a vineyard.
Further we climbed, to the site of his grandparent’s first ranch when they left the fields and settled in to do a bit of cattle farming. His grandfather planted an orange grove which he never thought he’d live long enough to enjoy. “Every time my grandfather would take me to pick oranges, he’d tell me this story. I thought it was weird,” says Mark. It’s clear his grandfather planted this grove as he planted his dreams and like many of us, doubted he’d see them come to fruition.
His grandparents planted many beautiful things, among them love for the and hard work, the enjoyment of simple pleasures, the love and appreciation for food you grow and harvest and prepare for your family. The sustenance that comes from being connected to the land, from being an inextricable part of the land, its sons and its daughters, as well as its caretakers. His grandparents planted apples: three lovely little trees, covered with apples the size of a 5-year old’s fist.
Perfectly wonderful, addictively delicious apples that make your mouth crazy with texture and crisp-spitting juiciness. Mark, who is thin, muscular and fit, grabs one, bites in, motions for me to do the same. “I eat 6 or 8 of these a day! They’re so good!” The doctor stays far, far away. Mark spent a little time in Ithaca, NY, so he really has an appreciation for apples. Being a New Yorker from the Hudson Valley, I abhor the apples available commercially in California: they’re bloated, inflated and boring. These, however, had all the pungeant pugilence of an apple: they bite back. Each one was different, and we soon fell to describing them as you would a wine. “Bright, spicy, juicy, acidic!” “Softer, nuttier, sweeter.” We were in apple heaven.
Oh, yeah, the wine! We sat on the deck at the Pisoni Home Ranch beneath the lemon light of an autumn afternoon sky, basking in the glow of crimson and gold grapevines, admiring the views, the sight of the apple trees, the field of agave, and appreciated the lingering hints of warmth from the dying embers in the stone fire pit. We tasted the fruits of his other labors, beginning with a beguiling “Lucy” rose of pinot noir, a spinoff from the Lucia label. It was bright with cranberry, elderberry and fantastic acidity: it’s the first time I’ve tasted 
blueberry in a rose. Then we sipped a barrel sample of chardonnay from the Soberanes vineyard which will be bottled under the Lucia label. It oozed of butterscotch and lemon meringue pie, with hints of tangerine, candied grapefruit and crystallized ginger. We sat, silently, letting the wine do its magic. Long after we tasted the pinots (which are humongous), that wine, crisp and clean, yet huge in texture and powerful of finish, haunted me like a chilly, crisp autumn afternoon in the orchards of the Northeast, overflowing with the heady perfume of cider, promising deliriously dense, delicious apple butter and succulent apple pies as big as your chill-starved appetite.
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