WINTER UPDATE

It has been awhile since I updated our blog - two kids under two years old does seem to sap away any and all of your free time. Above is our oldest son Joshua - he may be ready to hook the mule up to this plow sooner than we thought.
We have had a busy year - but it has been a very good year. We crushed almost 9 tons this year of Old Vine Zinfandel and Petite Sirah and barreled our wines down about a month ago. They are going through ML fermentation as we speak. The quality of the wine has been excellent - the year started out with a bang - we had a fairly warm heat spike in late Aug that got our fruit almost ripe and then it cooled down for a few weeks. We let our fruit hang through the cool period hoping to take advantage of extra flavor development the added hangtime can give - we were glad we did this and think it had very nice benefit.
Now we are just getting the vyd ready for winter - it is important to get the grass growing and open all our drains - we want to be prepared for that first downpour - we are ready.
We are releasing our 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel on Dec 15th - we think this is our best wine yet.
We will be a little more active in keeping our blog up to date.
Wish everyone the happiest of turkey days.

Glenn

Spring Already!! Here comes the Sun

Our 1946 Willys Jeep - Bringing back to life!

WOW!! Time does fly when you are having fun.

Vineyard:
It has been too long since we had a chance to write a post. But things are moving right along. This winter was a moderate with rain levels 50% of average in the Dry Creek Valley. Hopefully that will not be a problem - especially for us because we are virtually dry farmed. We finished pruning on the old vines and doing some replanting of misses on the young vines. We are just seeing bud break in the vineyard now ( that is when the bud begins to open) which is about normal. We have begun to mow our covercrops that we let grow over the winter - we use these to prevent erosion and add organic matter back into the soil - it makes a better vine.

Wine:
We are almost sold out of our 2004 Puccioni Old Vine Zin - we have had great response from our individual orders and have also placed our wine in some very nice accounts. We are getting ready to bottle our 2005 Old Vine Zin next month - we are very excited about this wine it is tasting very nice. Regarding our 2006 wines - we finished malo-lactic on them and have topped and racked them. Besides our Old Vine Zin in 2006 we will be doing a limited release Petite Sirah which we are very excited about. We know you will enjoy that.

Other Ramblings:
We have a Willys Jeep on the property that was driven by our grandfather everywhere he went and when visitors came to the vineyard he would use it to tour all his guests. It has been sitting idle for a few years - but we have decided to put some resources in it and bring it back to life. So I am reading all the articles I can find about refurbishing and rebuilding our Jeep. Above is a picture of it - you can see we have a little work to do.

Salute!!

Enjoy Puccioni Zin

Glenn

ZAP 2007 Puccioni Vineyards - What a Time!!

Our Team: l to r Laurie, Glenn, Joel, Angelo, Bart - taking the pic Amy.
We had a great time pouring Puccioni Old Vine Zinfandel at the ZAP festival yesterday. We got there at 7am and left at 5:30pm - it was a long day. All I can say is when you are on your feet]that long get a floor mat(we did thanks to Laurie). There were some great wines to taste. We had great response on our Zin - we are still new so people would come up asking us who we were etc, but once they tasted the wine they took a card and said they wanted to get our our mailing list. For a small winery like us this is a great opportunity to get exposure with some very knowledgeable Zinfandel fans. If you have not gone to this event - make sure you go at least once in your life!
Glenn

Puccioni Old Vine Zin Reviews - Good Stuff

We wanted to share with you some recent reviews we have gotten for our 2004 Puccioni Old Vine Zinfandel . The Connoisseur's Guide liked the wine and gave it a puff - which means they consider it to be an outstanding wine. The Wine Enthusiast gave the wine a 90 score and liked the rich character the wine offers. We are appreciative that we have been able to recieve these types of reviews - but our hope is that each of you who drink this wine get more than just the flavors or tastes or remember the scores - but that you take pleasure and time to enjoy each and every sip and in some way we have helped you make life just a little better. And of course its nice to know people have been tasting wine from these vineyards for over 100 years. All The Best!

Glenn Proctor

Appreciate any comments.

Harvest 2006 Puccioni Vineyards

The 2006 Harvest at Puccioni Vyds has begun. We harvested the Nicoletti blk and the Old Back Blk at the Puccioni Ranch and we also harvested Zinfandel from the Buchignani Ranch. Just to make the day more fun we also harvested the Lambert Bridge Vyds Petite Sirah on the same day. As you can see the whole family participated.
(Laurie, Joshua, and Glenn)

New Release 2004 Puccioni Old Vine Zinfandel

It is here!!

We have just released our 2004 Puccioni Old Vine Dry Creek Zinfandel. We have gotten some excellent comments on the wine with our early tastings. We are very excited about the wine and know you will enjoy it. Click on the title above to order our wine. Salute!

Puccioni 2004 "Old Vine" Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley

Vineyard: Puccioni Vineyard in the hills above Dry Creek Valley. Zinfandel grapes came from the Old Block and the Nicoletti Ranch. The Old Block is 90-100 years old and the Nicoletti Ranch is 50-60 years old. Both blocks are head-trained and dry farmed. These blocks were planted by my great grandfather and grandfather. The Old Block was harvested on September 13^th at 25.2 brix and the Nicoletti Ranch on September 30th at 24.2 brix. This was blended at 18% with Petite Sirah from Lambert Bridge Vineyards in Dry Creek Valley harvested on September 12th at 23.8 brix.

Winemaking: The grapes were cold soaked for three days to promote extraction and concentration. It was then fermented in ¾ ton open top fermenters and hand-punched 3x per day for maximum development of color and varietal flavors. The wine was direct pressed to barrels composed of 70% older French and 30% new American Oak where it finished Malo-Lactic fermentation. The wine was aged for 17 months in Barrel, bottled in the spring of 2006 and is now being released.

Tasting Notes: Aromas of dark berries with hints of cedar and spice, complex flavors of raspberry and blackberry and notes of chocolate, creamy oak and black pepper spice in the finish. Alcohol 14.9 %, TA .66, PH 3.86

2004 Puccioni Zinfandel Release - Aug 15

We are very excited!! We will be releasing our 2004 Puccioni Old Vine Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley on Aug 15th. A newsletter will be getting to our Puccioni Mules in the next week. We hope you enjoy the wine - we have gotten some wonderful comments on it .

It will be on a first come first serve basis so get your orders in !!

Thanks Glenn