Stewardship in Winegrowing

A Family Legacy of Farming


The Martinelli Family has been farming land and growing grapes in Sonoma County for over 135 years, consistently providing our winemaking team with exceptional fruit. It is our winemaking team’s goal to continually produce wines from our estate vineyards that represent its terroir, and to reproduce these wines consistently and recognizably year after year. Our winemakers and production staff are truly the guardians of terroir and play a significant part in producing wines that fully express the vineyard sites. We are truly blessed to be working with some of the best fruit grown in Sonoma County.

Picking zinfandel grapes by hand at steep Jackass Hill Zinfandel vineyard

Sustainability

For us sustainability has influenced almost every decision that has been made for the long term health of the winery. Every vineyard and the winery itself are 100% CERTIFIED! We believe it is going to become increasingly important that wineries are continually striving to find ways to improve the quality of the land and our lives in order to keep Sonoma County a cherished wine region. Some of the areas of the winery that we monitor closely and always look for ways to improve are regulating our water usage, monitoring other resources to maintain a high level of efficiency. All of these commitments ensures we can continue to pass this land down for generations and keep our family legacy thriving.

More About Our Sustainability


Martinelli vineyards map Martinelli vineyards map Martinelli topography map
Pacific Ocean
Sonoma Coast
Russian River Valley
Green Valley
Fort Ross - Seaview
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We were sheep ranchers for 120 years before becoming grape farmers on the coast.

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Apples were the main produce grown on the Bondi Home Ranch.

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Ships were the main route for trade up and down the coast.

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Trains ran from the Russian River to San Francisco carrying local products: hops, wool, prunes, etc.

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The Martinelli Winery building was originally a hop barn.

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The original Martinelli Winery was built here by Giuseppe.


The Story of

Jackass Hill

Planted in the 1880s by Giuseppi Martinelli, Jackass Hill is the steepest, non-terraced vineyard in Sonoma County, California and possibly the US. Its steepest section is a 60-65 degree slope. Its illegal to plant anything over 30 degrees today. Our family always says “you’d have to be a jackass to farm a hill that steep,” hence its name.

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