Laura Ness Article
March 06, 2009
Manzoni is a one man winery, deli
BY LAURA NESS
Her VineNess
BY LAURA NESS
Her VineNess
He probably grows your salad, be it spinach or romaine, plus broccoli and carrots - and he'll deliver gourmet cheeses and meats to your door in his van, The Mobile Deli. He'll gladly provide a bottle of wine to go with whatever you're cooking up. He's Mark Manzoni, who along with brother, Mike, farms about 350 acres of row crops as well as 6 acres of that perennially worrisome crop, wine grapes.
Mark's family came to the U.S. in 1920, starting a dairy in Greenfield. In 1956, they bought 150 acres and planted row crops. His dad initially put in vines for rootstock propagation, selling to Duarte for nine years before establishing his own vineyards in 1999.
Feeling that chardonnay was over-planted, the Manzonis opted for pinot noir, putting in clones 777 and 115, plus an acre of La Tâche, a.k.a. the famous "suitcase clone." Today, La Tâche ends up largely in the Estate Private Reserve program, which represents only 100 cases of the total 1,000-case production of Manzoni pinot, all made by business partner and winemaker, Steve Pessagno.
Mark also grows syrah, and he purchases chardonnay.
How did a vegetable farmer get into the wine business? The bug bit him after he made a small amount of pinot with Jeff Pisoni back in 2001. The wine placed third out of eight different pinots at a Super Bowl party, and he was hooked.
"I came back to my dad and told him I needed to find a winemaker," Mark said. "We had no intention of becoming a winery, and when we approached Steve [Pessagno] about the project, he said, 'Are you sure? If you get into this business, you better not do it unless you REALLY enjoy it!'"
And enjoy it Mark Manzoni does, especially working on a tractor all day and getting recognition for his wines from the likes of the Beverage Testing Institute in Chicago: 92 points out of 100 for his 2006 chardonnay, plus 93 points for the 2006
Reserve pinot, which also garnered 90 from Wine Enthusiast. Not bad for a tractor man. Check out Manzoni's "stimulus package" - 2005 and 2006 chardonnay for $16. The estate pinot is a true value at $23.
