Lee Martinelli Sr. is 87, and he can read his family on the trunks of his vineyard the way other people read a photo album.
On the 60-degree slope of Jackass Hill in Forestville, the zinfandel his grandfather Giuseppe planted in the late 1880s is still in the ground. Lee Sr. can walk among those vines and identify, by the pruning cuts on the trunks, which were made by his father, Leno, who farmed the hill from age 12 until he was 89; which were made by Giuseppe; which were made by him. Their hands and their fathers’ hands and their grandfather’s hands are all over the trunks.
Article continues below this ad…