Doing so was not an easy task. Mark, our vineyard manager, still recalls how difficult it was to pound stakes two feet deep into the unyielding, stone-filled ground. But the Pisoni family were rewarded a few years later, when reviews of the Lucia Soberanes Chardonnay began filtering into the press. Vinous Media’s Josh Raynolds identified the Lucia 2013 Soberanes Vineyard Chardonnay as replete with “… mineral and floral qualities” and described the next vintage as “finished with outstanding persistence” and “bracing mineral” notes. The Wine Advocate echoed Raynolds’ assessment of the Lucia 2014 Soberanes Chardonnay, highlighting its hints of “crushed rock.”

While outgrowths such as hills and trees produce structure and elegance for the eye, what winemakers term “minerality” helps create the same characteristics on the palate. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between soil structure and wine quality is exceedingly complex. It isn’t easy to determine exactly how must and soil minerals interact to produce the elusive mineral finish so prized in winemaking. But the fact remains that once fermented, the fruits of Soberanes Vineyard—its Chardonnay, but also its Pinot Noir and Syrah—consistently display this character.

Planting vines in very rocky soil stresses the plants in such a way as to encourage the expression of minerality. “Tasting the fruit yields lots of textural components,” Jeff explains. “In rockier soils, you can identify this textured character very early.” Climate contributes other factors in grape-growing, including acidity. The wine-growing regions of central California in general and the terroir of the Santa Lucia Highlands in specific promote a high level of natural acidity in wine. At Soberanes Vineyard, in particular, soil and weather tend to work in happy combination upon the fruit to further minerality.

Once the wine is in barrel, Jeff furthers these invigorating, cleansing mineral notes by practicing a very reductive winemaking style. So-called because it reduces rather than augments wine’s exposure to oxygen, reduction also encourages the retention of minerality. Some winemakers prefer a more aggressive oxidative style. By contrast, and in keeping with the work of the late Denis Dubourdieu, a University of Bordeaux oenologist who prompted a revolution in the quality of white wine in the 1990s, Jeff’s gentle winemaking style favors minimal intervention. He lessens the transfer of wine between barrels (a technique known as “racking”) to avoid aerating the wine. Very judicious stirring of the barrels helps achieve just the right amount of reduction, as does not over-mixing the heavy lees upon which Lucia Chardonnay is aged. These less aggressive techniques not only further the expression of minerality, but also result in wine that takes longer to mature and that ages well.

Nowhere is this careful, deliberate style of winemaking more self-evident than in the press cycle that follows crush. As both Mark and Jeff are well aware, cultivating grapes with superb phenolic potential makes excellent wine possible. But pressing, Jeff comments, is “the most crucial step in determining the style and direction of Chardonnay’s life-cycle in the winery.” The process unfolds slowly over two and a half to three hours, during which the wine is tasted at some twenty-five different intervals. Each time Jeff assess a sample, he checks the sugar (which shifts just a few tenths of a percent over the course of successive pressing) and the pH, which changes far more radically. The acid concentration of any wine helps determine its structural and textural balance. Press too long, and too much harshness from the phenolic compounds in the skins and stems is released, with correspondingly negative implications for the wine’s acid profile. Press insufficiently, and the wine will not exhibit the structural complexity that lingers on the palate. To get the most out of the press cycle requires not just experience, but also a kind of intuition. Winemakers like Jeff Pisoni strive to become virtuosos of this skill.

In the end, it is impossible to determine exactly how soil influences grape quality, just as it is impossible to explain the complicated process in wine-making that sustains minerality. Nonetheless, critics continue to praise the Lucia Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah of Soberanes Vineyard for exhibiting just this trait. Their comments cannot help but please the Pisoni family, who take care year after year to make sure that Lucia wines, regardless of their individual profiles, offer beautiful expression of the specific landscapes that are so important in their creation.