"Character through adversity" is an expression that the Hartford family believes when referring to people and to grapevines. Their single-vineyard, custom-made Burgundian-style wines have plenty of hard-fought character, style, “high personality” and finesse. The winery produces five Zinfandels, four Pinot Noirs, three Chardonnays, and a Syrah.

Along picturesque Martinelli Road, 15 miles from the ocean, is the luxurious country winery of the Hartford family. A courtyard entry is surrounded by lush gardens and an overhead trellis. Inside is a stately home environment with living room furniture, chandeliers, oriental rugs, an elegant, tall grandfather clock, tile floors and French doors. A small tasting counter with their friendly and often-zany tasting room staff features a number of their handcrafted wines.

The winemaking celebrates each vineyard’s unique “terroir.” With ten vineyards to work with, soils are identified and mapped into small blocks for planting to specific rootstocks and clonal selections. Once it has been hand-harvested, the fruit is cold-soaked for up to five days before the fermentation is allowed to begin to extract additional flavors.

When making their Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, the fruit is partially de-stemmed, leaving mostly whole berries for delivery to stainless steel open-top fermentors. For maximum color and flavor extraction, wide shallow fermentors are used to facilitate the mixing (punching down) of the skins. After the cold soak, the cooling jackets are turned off and the grape juice is allowed to warm and begin fermentation, using either native or cultured yeasts. Wines are then aged in tight-grain French oak barrels for up to 15 months. After going to barrel, they are usually racked only once before bottling.