We source our Tocai Friulano grapes from hystoric Pagani Ranch in the heart of the Valley of the Moon. This contract was also achieved through endurance, this time the person to beg was owner Dino Amantite, who could finally not resist the call of his Italian heritage.
The Ranch was turned to viticulture in the 1880s by Felice Pagani, Dino’s grandfather. The vines are head-trained and water preservation is assured through dry-farming. Modern farming techniques are slightly hindered here, due to the narrow spaces between plantings, which is a reminiscence of the times when the vineyard work used to be carried out by the pull of a horse. Each plant is unique, with its own orientation, yield and eventual problematics, and needs to be individually tended to. On our first season working with the Tocai Friulano, Dino’s mom, Norma, showed Enrico how to properly hand-prune the plants, which she meticulously does every year.
Here the mystic Sonoma Valley is at its maximum splendor, the grape trees surging over red and dusty soil of volcanic composition, washed down from the Sonoma Mountain Range.