Our Story So Far

January 19th, 2006 → 1:35 pm @ Josh Hermsmeyer


Capozzi Logo

For those visiting the blog for the first time, I’ve assembled a recap of sorts of where we at Capozzi Winery have come in the past couple months. I’ll be making it a permanent link in its own little box on the left and adding to it as events warrant. Hopefully this will make it easy to get up to speed quickly
on how we’re progressing.

On November 18, ‘05 pinotblogger was born. Its stated purpose is to “outline the long and painful processes involved in starting and building a family winery in the Russian River Valley�. While we haven’t been at it very long nor has it been particularly painful yet, I’m 99.9% certain that at least one of these adjectives will correctly describe the project in the very near future (hopefully NOT painful and short though, as that would be sad).

Soon after starting the blog we asked readers to help us try and conjure up an appropriate name for the winery. Thanks to Tom Wark we got a nice bump in
traffic as well as some quality suggestions from him and others (Insomnia Winery anyone?). I also got a chance in that post to explain our motivation for starting the winery. In short, it’s all about keeping our family close and connected.

While we mulled over the possibilities I wrote a few posts regarding our choice of pinot noir clones, which are the building blocks of any good pinot, and our neighborhood and local terroir. Those interested in winegrowing and the Russian River Valley in general might find them of interest.

When we finally arrived at a decision on our winery name, it was made by looking back at our family history. Capozzi Winery is named in honor of my great Grandmother Maria Giovanna who was a bootlegger during the prohibition era. She would ship in grapes from California to make wine in her basement for sale, and keep her sales tallied in a little ledger. As the first winemaker in the family, we think it’s only fitting to honor her pioneering efforts.

Soon after we turned our attention toward creating our label, and we are currently in the middle of that process. We have a logo designed by the wonderful Dayna, AKA The Calligraphy Lady whose exquisite hand lettering has been featured in magazines such as Martha Stewart, Better Homes and Gardens and Cosmo. She created a couple of great logos for us; so good in fact we couldn’t decide between them. So, being a blogger, I placed them both on the blog and asked for feedback. We received lots, as well as other helpful suggestions that made it quite easy for us to make our final decision. Currenly we are getting the proposed winery site surveyed, and we’re designing our label and our winery floorplans, and pictures of both should be up for comment shortly.

To be continued… Click here to see the most recent posts

If you would like to stay up to date with us and also be informed when our inaugural vintage is ready for purchase, please join our mailing list.