Shakers Magazine calls Pisoni Vineyards
“Better than Ever”
We’re delighted to be the subject of the lead article in the latest issue of Shakers magazine. “Pisoni Vineyards makes key advancements as it keeps its core value, family, close to its heart,” Mark C. Anderson leads off in “Better Than Ever” (Shakers 6.0). The essay highlights our increased “dedication to biodiversity” in the vineyard and our purchase of new “winemaking technology” in our Sonoma county winery.
In a section honoring Mark as “The Wine Grower,” Anderson calls the latest grove of trees in our orchard “a flowery playground” that is both “idyllic” and “practical.” Its forty-odd species, which include Buddha’s hand and Yuzu lime, help sustain our insectary and beehives, which Mark delights in as one means to increase our ability to work towards “’being harmonious with nature.’”
Anderson distinguishes Jeff in “The Winemaker,” highlighting our new press and our new destemmer, which “gives Jeff the ability to sort by berry size.” Both kinds of equipment, Anderson points out, allow for “more precise block-by-block” winemaking.
The fact that Mark manages the vineyard and Jeff the winery leads to a “unique… brand of brotherhood” in “the region’s wineries,” Anderson suggests. Gary is frequently asked “’… if I planned out what I would do and what each kid would do.’” Things just happened naturally, he explains. “’We all followed what we love to do, and we were lucky we all loved doing something different.’”
This harmonious division of labor encourages what Jeff calls a “’symbiotic’” relationship between brothers, one that not only helps the family, as Mark notes, to “’coordinate the countless seemingly small decisions throughout the year that add up to make the real difference in the final wine,’” but which allows all of us at Pisoni to delight in the process as much as the wine we eventually obtain.
Mark Pisoni Named One of 20 Most Admired Grapegrowers 
Pisoni Family Farmers Larger than Life 
The Lucia 2016 Vintage.