Driving on a winding, rural road south of Hollister, the
elevation slowly begins to rise as the everyday worries of south
Silicon Valley suddenly seem worlds away.
Driving on a winding, rural road south of Hollister, the elevation slowly begins to rise as the everyday worries of south Silicon Valley suddenly seem worlds away.
Hypnotically navigating through lush hills and valleys, nobody speeds on Cienega Road. The pace is admirably lazy, as if not to disturb the masterpiece Mother Nature has planted on both sides of the road.
As the sweeping turns continue, the concrete forks and a hand-painted, black arrow reveals the serpentine climb to the Pietra Santa Vineyards and Winery, an image of inspiration fills the senses, taking the mind to a magical time when life was simple.
At the top of the road, a turn-of-the-century Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home basks in the cozy mid-morning sun, while the perfectly lined rows of grapes carpeting the valley below and the terraced hills of 5,000 Italian olive trees on the hazy horizon are just beginning to shed their nightly blanket of Pacific fog.
This is South Valley wine country, where since the 1850s European immigrants have poured their culture into the blessed soil in hopes of filling their new neighbors’ hearts and stomachs with their love for good wine.
“The history, the culture – it’s all in the soil,” said Joseph Gimelli, owner of the internationally renowned, 455-acre Pietra Santa Vineyards and Winery located seven miles south of Hollister, which includes an olive oil production facility. “Wine has been grown in this region for more than 150 years. The warm, sunny days; the cool, foggy nights – this is a Mediterranean climate. The soil is packed with limestone (Pietra Santa is Italian for ‘sacred stone’) – perfect for growing grapes.”
Indeed, long before prunes, cherries and even garlic, the fertile soil of South Valley bore grape-filled vineyards planted by Italian and French immigrants.
And while wine-growing areas north of the bay such as Napa and Sonoma have long-enjoyed wide-spread reputations as premier destinations for wine lovers, the aged, “Old World” charm of South Valley’s nearly 20 vineyards is steadily becoming uncorked by the wine world.
But unlike some of their famous neighbors to the north, most local vineyards and wineries have no grandiose plans – they are simply keeping family traditions alive.
“Spending a day touring the local wineries is a true, hands-on historical experience,” said Valerie Brockbank, the recently-hired executive director of the Santa Clara County Valley Wine Growers Association, which was established in 1947 to promote the area’s wine industry.
“This is not Disneyland,” she said. “These are third and fourth generation families – mostly Italians. They are living history of this part of California through their wine making, and they are welcoming others to be a part of that.”
It’s that emphasis on Old-World hospitality that makes South Valley’s wine country so unique, and the key for its spreading reputation as a ripe hamlet for wine tour veterans and novices alike, said Gene Guglielmo, who along with brothers George and Gary operates the Guglielmo Family Winery in Morgan Hill.
Guglielmo (Gool-YELL-mo) was founded in 1925 by the brothers’ grandfather, Emilio, an Italian immigrant who made his way from New York to the Bay Area.
Upon his arrival in Santa Clara County, Emilio Guglielmo’s wines quickly became the spirit of choice in his neighbors’ homes and in many of San Francisco’s famed North Beach restaurants. During Prohibition, Guglielmo was forced to hide his wine barrels in a special cellar he built under his home; today that home is used as the winery’s office.
Guglielmo’s 150,000 cases of wine produced every year can now be found throughout the country and even internationally, although the vineyards still cover a relatively small acreage of land.
“It’s about quality, not quantity,” Gene Guglielmo said. “We have seen a lot of new wineries come into the area within the last 10 years, but it’s not a competition thing. We all try to help each other out: Buy in bulk together, talk about any problems we might be having. For us, we just want to give people the best wine we can.”
As the 10,000 people who visited Guglielmo last year can testify, a tour of the facility gives the visitor more than just a crash course in wine production, it gives them a full glass of Mediterranean culture.
If not for the English spoken at the vineyard, visitors could assume they were in Emilio Guglielmo’s birthplace in the Piedmonte region of Northern Italy.
Large wooden beams, stone walls sprouting ivy, terra cotta tile and a piazza complete with a streaming fountain all nestle in the shadows of Murphy’s Peak to the west.
Across from the large barrel storage facility is the wine tasting room with the finest salami, breads, oils and spices imported from Italy.
“The tasting room is a place to learn,” said Gene Guglielmo, who stressed that Guglielmo visitors are never pressured to buy the wines that usually retail from $10 to $15 a bottle. “Enjoying wine is about good food and good company, not how much you know about viticulture.”
Linda Welch likes that philosophy.
Welch and her husband, Bill, are wine novices from Modesto, but in February they spent a Saturday happily enamored in their second trip to the quaint Solis Winery west of Gilroy on Hecker Pass Highway.
“I’ve been to Napa once but the wineries there are just too big and commercialized,” said Linda Welch as she leaned on the tall bar in the Solis tasting room and sipped a sample wine. “The wineries here are a lot more friendly. … You come in, taste some wines, pack a picnic lunch and buy a bottle of your favorite wine – it’s the ultimate relaxing day.”
Standing on the tasting room balcony of Pietra Santa and looking out over the picturesque Cienega Valley only 25 miles inland from Monterey Bay, relaxation is not a goal, but an addictive truth rising from the soil.
As the sounds of huge metal bells echo from the tower of the old Spanish mission-style winery signal the end of the workday, Joseph Gimelli and his wife Deanna each hold a hearty glass of red wine as they point toward their house where local wild pigs ran through the vineyard the previous night.
Joseph Gimelli says he’s not too worried about the pigs – they’ve been here just as long as the grapes – and he speaks of his plans to transfer the aged-oak storage barrels from the current modern storage facility to the natural caves on the other side of the vineyard – after all, that’s how it’s done in the Old World.
“I think a lot of people who come here will remember for the day for the rest their lives,” Deanna Gimelli said. “We use modern technology to take people back to the Old World.”
