The Seven Mules Vineyard is located on the former site of the old Baldocci Winery. It has since passed hands over the decades until Lee and Carolyn Martinelli purchased it in 1997. The ancient barn still stands on the estate and once housed seven mules which were used to cultivate the property in the early 1900's. The vineyard site is a series of beautiful rolling knolls which offer a brilliant mountain view of distant erupting geysers to the north. The foggy mornings of the Russian River Valley lend wonderful fruit characteristics to this Burgundian varietal. This petite vineyard is densely planted with 2,000 vines per acre. The two select clones, '114' and '115', are grafted onto the '101-14' rootstock. The vines are trained on a vertical trellis system with the fruit hanging just 24 inches above the ground. The grapes are thinned down to between two and three pounds of fruit per vine. These practices all insure mature fruit flavors in the wine as well as even ripening.

The grapes are picked between 25 and 26 degrees brix to ensure mature ripe fruit flavors. They are hand selected at harvest time by Lee Martinelli, Sr. and Helen Turley, who taste the grapes and choose when to pick according to the developed concentration of flavors in the berries. After picking, the whole berries undergo a long cool fermentation, with indigenous yeast, to generate skin contact and expose fruit character. The juice is gravity fed into small oak barrels with a touch of residual sugar remaining to complete the fermentation process in barrel until dry. It is then allowed to rest and mature in 75% new French oak on its gross lees for 10 months. Being a particular and moody varietal to tamper with this Pinot Noir is minimally handled. This wine is neither heat nor cold stabilized and is unfined and unfiltered.