A Story of Rosé.
A New Release and Label for Lucy

We’re proud to announce the 2017 vintage of Lucy, which in bottle is graced with a new label whose finely-embossed surface nicely suits this delicate, well-crafted wine.
Winemaker Jeff Pisoni began crafting our rosé Pinot Noir in 2003. Born in the Santa Lucia Highlands alongside our Pisoni and Lucia wines, Lucy is composed solely of estate fruit—a rarity for rosé. As with all our wines, coaxing our cuvée into being requires a great deal of patience and fine-tuning. We begin by selecting grapes from several of our vineyards to encourage a complex texture and subtle, nuanced aromatics. At the winery, we meticulously hand-sort the grapes. Most makers of rosé produce their wine either by choosing to press whole clusters, or by using what is called the Saignée method. At Pisoni, we craft Lucy by combining these methods. We begin by sending whole grape clusters to the press, taking immense care to retain the most delicate and aromatic juice through a meticulous and painstaking process that requires much tasting and testing. Next, we use the Saignée method to drain, or “bleed” a small amount of juice from a portion of grapes clusters while in tank to produce the beautiful translucent flush of color you see in the bottle, as well as to give the final rosé slightly more character. Using both methods enables us to craft wine that offers elegance and a bright, crisp acidity together with greater complexity and color.

Lastly, we age Lucy for three months, using a group of barrels we set aside each year precisely for this purpose. We choose barrels that have been aged for at least ten years. By fermenting Lucy in neutral barrels, we encourage our rosé to develop greater volume and texture and simultaneously avoid adding any oak flavor that might overpower the delicate quality of this wine.
It seems only fitting that our new label was developed with a similar level of meticulousness. After asking a professional scientific illustrator to capture the flowering phrase of a pinot noir grape cluster, our team carved the outlines of this image onto brass plates no less than six times before we achieved just the right image.
Lucy’s label is new, but our dedication to helping in the fight against breast cancer remains unchanged. For over a decade now we have been donating a dollar from each bottle of Lucy we sell to the Susan G. Komen 3-Day® and other charitable funds. [When you toast with our beautiful rosé, you are also holding up your glasses to honor those working to find solutions for this illness.]
We look forward to sharing our rosé of pinot noir with you this season.
