In July, we volunteered at Pinot Days in San Francisco and manned the silent auction booth. At the silent auction, we could not resist bidding on a two-night-stay at a guest house located at one of the wineries and vineyards of Santa Lucia Highland (SLH.) Lo and behold, we won it. Santa Lucia Highland is a well respected Pinot growing region, located southeast of Monterey, south of Salinas.
Lucia Highland Vineyard in the morning
World-class Pinots are being made there by Morgan, Roar, Hahn, Pessagno and Talbot, to name a few. There are also quite a few superb wines being made by out-of-the-area wineries that source fruit from SLH, such as Siduri and Testarossa. We also are producing our first SLH Pinot vintage from a fabulous vineyard called Lone Oak—this was one of the reasons we bid on this item at the auction. We spent our 2 nights there this past weekend while our SLH Pinot was cold soaking in San Francisco.
One of the great things about this region is that the area is not a monoculture–you have some incredible vineyards on one side of River Road and celery, lettuce and broccoli fields on the other.
SLH Celery fields outside Pessagno
The people are so friendly and hospitable. We stayed at the Pessagno Winery guest house www.pessagnowines.com. Steve Pessagno, the owner, winemaker and everything else (most likely) was kind enough to take time to talk with us while they were in the middle of the craziest time of the year, harvest.
Pessagno winery
We also took this opportunity to visit Lone Oak Vineyard, from which we source fruit for our SLH vineyard-designate Pinot. Steve sent us over to check out the harvest at Lucia Highland Vineyard, which was in full swing. Check out the picture of the highlands and video of the harvest below.
Lucia Highland Vineyard harvest
