It all started with a dream about Pinot Noir. A true visionary in the Santa Lucia Highlands, Gary Pisoni has worked tirelessly since collecting and making his first wines in the 1970’s, planting Pisoni Vineyards in 1982, and the producing of the first Pisoni Estate Pinot Noir with his sons in 1998. As dreamers often do, Gary felt something on his family’s land that was seemingly not there and followed his intuition relentlessly to uncover it. Multiple costly drilling attempts failed before bringing water up from beneath the solid granite that makes up the hillsides, a feat so many believed to be impossible.

Today, Gary’s vision of Pinot Noir in the rugged and rocky mountains above the Salinas Valley has been more than realized. Multiple blocks of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah varietals pepper the landscape at elevations from 900 to 1,300 feet, from which we produce wines that seem destined to come from this remarkable site. As a winemaker, Gary has always been intent on communicating the personality of the land from which the wine was grown — a task he now shares with his sons, vineyard manager Mark and vintner Jeff.