Pisoni Vineyards

Several Mondays ago I posted an email interview I had done with Mark Pisoni of Pisoni Vineyards. In this post I’d like to leave you with this short video I did with Mark a few months back when I went up to his neck of the woods to meet with a few of the SIP (Sustainability in Practice) farmers.

As I’ve said before I found Mark to be super passionate about farming and sustainability. His passion for it makes you want to hear and learn more about it. Farming is a family business for Mark and I really hope to tap into more of their story and be able to pick his brain on the sustainability side of the farming.

So check out the short video and I apologize for some of the wind noise.

Cheers!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Green Wine Chat

We recently did our second Green Wine Chat on a Google Plus Hangout. Jerry James Stone, Larry Fournillier, and I (Matt Browne) were joined by Ashley Routson and Fritze Westover (SIP’s newest team member) to talk about the Paso Robles region and taste a few of the wines that this amazing, up and coming area has to offer.

Our goal is to do one of these chats per month so be sure to check them out and submit any ideas you may have for future topics. I absolutely love the diversity of people on the chats. You have the vegetarian foodie, the beer chick, and the Caribbean cuisine king from Trinidad and Tobago…a pretty fun group. We’ll have different folks on from time to time, which will bring further diversity to the Hangouts  as well, but it’s been a great start.

Check out the video below and have a great week!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Classic Rock or Classic Country? Rock.

Favorite spot in the vineyard? A place we call Oyster Ridge.

Best tip for surviving the “Roller Coaster They Call Farming”? Read everything you can get hold of and stay at it.

Red or White or…? Red.

Most Surprising Aha Farming Moment? Seeing the effects of adding compost tea to the drip stream.

When you’re not farming, where would we find you? In the pickup on the cell phone.

Wranglers or Levis? Wranglers of course.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us? Never give up

#EDFW13

Another Earth Day Food and Wine Festival is in the books and I can definitely say they somehow manage to get better and better each year. As you’ll see from the photos in the slideshow below there were tons of people, amazing food and wine, great music, owls, and so much more.

This was the last year for this event at Pomar Junction Winery and they have been absolutely fantastic hosts. In 2014 we will switch venues to Castoro Cellars on Hwy 46 West in Paso Robles. I’ve been fortunate to see this event held at Santa Margarita Ranch and Pomar Junction, both places were beautiful and I suspect Castoro Cellars will be another perfect Earth Day host.

None of this would be possible without the staff, the fabulous volunteers, and the vendors that show up to support this event that is all about sustainability and fun!!  At the end of the day, it’s the people that make this event, whether you’re a volunteer or you’re an attendee…the people create this amazing vibe that makes me want to come back year after year.

Thanks again to everyone involved. Enjoy the slideshow below. The photos are from several different people including Shawn Burgert, Inktree Photography,  and myself (Matt Browne).

Cheers!!

Mark Pisoni

I had the chance to meet with Mark Pisoni a couple of months back and found the guy to be super down-to-Earth and quite passionate about his family vineyards, farming, and being SIP Certified. Below you will find three questions I asked him as well as his answers. On a future blog post I will be posting a video I did with him as well, so stay tuned for that.

1)    Your passion for farming and being in the vineyards was evident to me when we met, has this always been the case? When did you start farming or hanging out in the vineyards and has it always been that passionate for you?

Mark:  I have always loved farming. As a young child I was the one out in our garden planting corn, string beans, cucumbers, etc. I always liked watching things grow and spending time outdoors.  Today, while I farm vegetables and vineyards for “work”, my favorite hobby is still gardening at home- It’s where I spend a lot of time with my two kids- my son loves getting the water hose and watering the plants (and occasionally me!) while my daughter likes to look at bugs. It is good, clean fun until they are full of mud running through the house!

This love of farming was naturally fostered by growing up on our family farm in the Salinas Valley.  The farm and working with my family are things I cherish.  I realized this growing up and ultimately went on to study at Cornell, receiving my Masters degree in Agricultural Economics in 2001.  Today we continue farming the vegetables- from my grandfather’s start in 1952.   We also farm wine grapes, which my father started in 1982.  The next progression was to make our own wine.  We started this in 1998.  Even with this step, we still keep it within the family- my brother Jeff is our winemaker (while I was playing in the garden, he was playing with a chemistry set)

2)    What would you say are your three favorite SIP practices?

Mark: First, was working with our local Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) representative. One of the requirements in the SIP program is to develop a conservation plan. I reached out to our local representatives and they were extremely helpful. They spent time with me on the ranch and helped me with some erosion problems that I had been dealing with for years. Their fresh prospective was great.
Next, is having an irrigation consultant visit our vineyard.  One of our vineyards is located in the mountains and it is a difficult property to irrigate because the terrain is so varied.  The irrigation consultant looked at my drip irrigation system and pressures at various locations and helped me to improve my irrigation efficiency.  Farming in the mountains is full of obstacles, and it takes a lot of effort to fine-tune each practice.
The third favorite was installing a weather station and soil-based measuring devices to track and monitor my irrigation program. These new technologies really help inform what is going on underneath the soil.  This allows one to become so much more in touch with the vines and what they need: better for quality and better for our resources.

3)    Were there any aspects of SIP that truly taught you something or was most of it stuff you had already been familiar with?

Mark: I learned a great deal from the SIP process. It was far more rigorous than I had imagined and I was very surprised with how much time I invested in the certification process. But it was time well spent and it helped me to better understand our ranches-It’s a form of introspection, where by recording and planning, we were also evaluating what we do.  Many of the requirements of the SIP program were things I knew I should be doing, but as a small farmer it was always tough to find the time. The SIP program forced me to sit down and really dig into every detail of our ranch from the soil to talking with wineries that purchased our grapes.

Happy Monday folks, and more importantly…Happy Earth Day!!

I was born and raised in the Napa Valley when it was still known more for the state mental hospital than it was for great wines. My great, great grandparents came to the valley in the 1870’s so I am the 5th generation in Napa. The last family members in the farming profession were both great grandfather’s on my mother’s side. My great grandfather, George Mollo, had 12 acres of Zinfandel vines that he sold to Christian Brothers. My other great grandfather, Harry Young, was the ranch manager for the Hamilton Crabb’s To Kalon Ranch.  The ranch is now majority owned by Robert Mondavi Winery and Andy Beckstoffer owns an 85 acre parcel (just look in the Wine Spectator and you will see many great wines coming from Andy’s parcel). When I was young, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, Ernie and Ina Mollo, who had a 2 acre parcel with vines, fruit trees, and assorted fruits and vegetables. I was fascinated with anything that grew. I was also amazed at how manipulation techniques, such as grafting and pruning, lead to the ultimate result at harvest. I  was lucky enough to attend a high school where they still offered farm and horticulture programs. I ended up trying fire fighting, landscaping, and horticulture before I made a  decision to go into viticulture. I went through the horticulture program at Solano College and the viticulture program at Napa Valley College after which I found  a position with Flora Spring Wine Company and Garvey Brothers Vineyard Management in Saint Helena in 1997. I left there 2 years ago to work in San Luis Obispo county at Niner Wine Estates.

What do you like about working in the wine industry?

I love working outdoors and with mother nature. I love being able to apply different viticultural techniques in the field to achieve a product that I love so much, wine. I love the differing nuances in wine from the different growing regions of California. I love the passion of the people in the wine industry. I love the interaction between nature and humans to create a product not intended by nature, but a natural product created and enjoyed by humans.

What is Niner Wine Estates farming philosophy?

Our farming philosophy is simply to make the very best wine possible. This starts in the vineyard because great wines start with great grapes! Our goal is to take a very un-natural situation like a vineyard and integrate it into the whole ecosystem so as to work with nature instead of against it. We are always trying new techniques in the field to improve fruit quality. We strive to be on the cutting edge of winegrape viticulture. Overall we want to preserve the land for future generations to use and enjoy while leaving it in better shape than we found it.

What does it mean to be SIP Certified?

SIP Certification means a great deal to us because our winery was the first LEED certified winery on the Central Coast. We were already farming sustainably, but we wanted to take that one step further through certification. This includes not only making sure the land is taken care of, but also our employees as well. Our biggest resource is our employees – without them our business would not exist. We make sure they are compensated well and that working conditions are optimal. We want them to enjoy their work thus equating to excellence in the vineyard. We do all of this while still being able to keep the business profitable.

What are a few of your proudest accomplishments?

My biggest accomplishment is being a successful farmer. I hope that my grandparents and great grandparents are looking down on me with approval. They are my benchmark. I only wish I could sit down with them and have in depth discussions about farming past and present. Also, I consider myself a perpetual student of farming. Continuing education and experimentation is extremely important to me. The best piece of advice I ever received was from my grandfather who said, “It is a poor day that you don’t learn something. The day you think you know everything you need to know about the business you’re in is the day you need to find a different line of work”. That is my motto for both business and life.

When you are not in the vineyard, what can we find you doing?

I love making homemade beer especially a good porter ale. I have been doing it for over 20 years. My love of fermentation and my love of growing things led me to viticulture. I am also a foodie. My wife, Michele, and I love exploring the restaurants of the Central Coast. We also love gourmet cooking at home for family and friends. We are always looking for the freshest ingredients for our cooking. Between all the farmer’s markets and local businesses, the Central Coast is a treasure trove of excellence.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Classic Rock or Classic Country? Valkyries with saddle bags of souls.

Favorite spot in the vineyard? Our hill top overlooks famous Santa Rita Hills vineyards of Melville, Foley, Clos Pepe, Kessler Haak, Babcock, Turner, Brewer Clifton, Huber, Gypsy Canyon and Cebada Canyon. The cliff was once an acorn grinding rock for the ancient Chumash culture.

Red or White or…? Orange juice with sparkling wine and a Cuban cigar- stolen from pirates.

Best tip for surviving the “Roller Coaster They Call Farming”? My family has survived sugar cane farming since before Louisiana was a state. I learned one lesson growing up watching crops fail for years and then succeed: don’t borrow money. Expect not to make money. Buy more land when you do.

Most Surprising Aha Farming Moment? We have weather catastrophes almost every year, yet the wine has never failed us.

When you’re not farming, where would we find you? In the Caribbean Sea, at the helm of my Morris 42, seeking treasure while sipping on iced rosé.

Wranglers or Levis? Shorts and flip flops worn with .08 blood on a broad reach in the shade of the main.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us? Professional wrestling is real.

The festival is a great way to bring a bunch of people together with the common interest of taking better care of the Earth and each other. Although I personally always understood the importance of this it wasn’t until I first attended this event and met the folks at the Central Coast Vineyard Team that it really sunk in. To see this community of people share this common goal and bring interesting and innovative ideas to the table has been extremely educational and quite impressive.

I guess that’s the thing that has really stuck out to me since I first attended Earth Day Food and Wine Festival several years back…community. It really does feel like a family of people that WANT to be part of making our local community and the entire Earth a better place to be. They want to talk to you and tell you the interesting things they’re doing at their restaurant, their vineyard, their solar company, or their green landscape business.

You can hear the passion they have for this cause and THAT makes this event different. As I’ve said in other blog posts about this event and group of people, it truly does feel like the biggest backyard BBQ you’ve ever been to…filled with good friends, live music, amazing food, great wines, and other awesome vendors ready to tell you their stories.

The only thing I know to say is that after going for four or five years straight, I guarantee it’s impossible to not have a great time with these amazing folks. I hope to see you out there!

You can also check out this link to wikipedia about how the Earth Day movement started over 40 years ago!!

Do you “do” Earth Day? What things have you done to repurpose or be sustainable?

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