Recently I sat down with Pete Seghesio and was introduced to the great new company he has established in Healdsburg California. Acclaimed winemaker Pete Seghesio embraced another long standing family tradition, studied with Italian masters, and secured the best ingredients from local farms to create the most memorable tasting experience in wine country. In the late 1800s, Peter Seghesio’s grandparents emigrated from Italy and settled in Sonoma County. As lifelong farmers, they immediately recognized the promise of the land, and began two traditions that we still honor today: winemaking and crafting artisanal salumi, sausage, and cured meats. When Peter was only three years old, his father, Eugene “Pio” Seghesio, and his father’s best friend, George Dominichelli, began teaching him how to craft sausage and cure meat. Pete learned how to harvest the farm-raised hogs to create fresh sausage, salumi, and other cured meats, carrying on a multi-generational tradition common among the area’s Italian families. Handmade sausage and cured meats are a delicacy, but they began as sustenance to nourish farmers and their families through the winter. In 1987, Peter took on the family business, Seghesio Family Vineyards. Under Pete’s leadership, the hundred-year-old family winery quickly earned national accolades for the Zinfandel produced from the family’s historic vineyards. In 1997, Pete and his wife, Cathy, brought a cherished family tradition to the winery: annual sausage making parties, where guests could handcraft meat custom-seasoned to pair perfectly with their favorite wine. By combining traditions passed down through his family, techniques learned from the Italian greats, and seasonal ingredients harvested from local farms, Pete and the Journeyman Meat Company team strive to create the best products in one of the world’s most bountiful culinary regions: Sonoma County.We have three great new features with Pete,and today we will feature our first feature of three of his great wines from Journeyman Wine Company. This will include his Chardonnay ,Pinot noir,and Rose. In 1896, my great-grandfather, an immigrant from Italy, purchased a young vineyard for 10 gold coins he earned working as a cook in California’s gold mines. With its fog, cobbled hillsides and proximity to the ocean, this special place reminded him of his hometown in Italy, San Lorenzo. At the same time, my paternal grandfather, already a winemaker in California, founded Seghesio Family Vineyards and Winery. Eventually, my parents would meet over a grape purchase at the San Lorenzo Vineyard. Today, it is my privilege to steward the San Lorenzo Planting, and honor the iconic 120-year-old vineyard that has helped shaped my life. Humbled our family’s rich history in and deep love of the California wine industry, I began Journeyman with my wife and sons to share with them a craft that has sustained our family for generations. Journeyman’s 2016 Chardonnay is a blend of four extraordinary vineyards: Zio Tony, Lucky Well, Dutton and the famed Ritchie Vineyard. Carefully harvesting select portions of these famed sites in the middle of the night and at the peak of maturation, we are able to achieve great depth of flavor from this noble grape. Flavor accents of red apple, ‘chablis-like’ limestone and white blossoms accented with fine French oak tannins surround the creamy palate of this complex wine. The result of our tedious process – the carefully selected vineyards, the nighttime harvest, and the concrete egg aging period – is a wine of structured elegance with nuances of green apple, stone fruit, wet limestone and honeysuckle, with layered sweetness from refined oak components. THE VINEYARD Our Pinot Noir comes from an iconic “old vineâ€? vineyard we have worked with for over a decade. The Thomas Road Vineyard, meticulously farmed by the Dutton Family, was planted in 1986, the year that Peter graduated with his enology degree. With a foundation of Goldridge Soils, this
