Glenn Proctor leads two lives.

A grape and wine broker for Joseph W. Ciatti Company, he’s a polished spokesman for his industry. Proctor is comfortable giving a “Global Supply Update” to an audience of hundreds at a Unified Symposium presentation. He’s also at home-perhaps literally-tending head trained Zinfandel vines his great grandfather planted in 1904.
      
      

The Puccioni Vineyards have been in Glenn's family for a century.

Those century-old plantings in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County are the basis for Puccioni Vineyards’ “Old Vine” Zinfandel. The first release-the 2003 vintage-totaled but 96 cases. Subsequent harvests have been good and production may double or even triple. Still, the fledging family winery is tiny by any standard. It’s a far cry from the volume of Glen Ellen Winery where Proctor started his career, or from the storied BV and Sterling wineries, which were part of his charge when he was Vice President of Winegrowing for Diageo. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viticulture from Fresno State and UC Davis, but speaks with respect of the lessons he was taught by his grandfather Louie. Weekends and summers he worked in the vineyard with his grandfather who, though lacking formal training as a viticulturist, made sure to grill a college boy who needed to learn practical ways, as well as academic.

Glenn and Laurie Proctor are the visible owners of Puccioni Vineyards www.puccionivineyards.com, but Glenn is quick to mention that other family members have interests in the property, too. Sharing ownership and helping with the redevelopment of the vineyards are his Uncle Angelo Puccioni and Angelo’s daughter, Allison Puccioni, as well as Glenn’s sister, Deneen Proctor. The successful management of those vineyards and the small winemaking operation may be key to keeping the ranch intact and in sustaining its agricultural usage-a goal held by all the family.

The vineyards are just a small part of the 200-acre ranch. The property is hilly and still heavily wooded with Redwood trees. That “Old Vine” Zinfandel fruit comes from the 102-year old plantings of great grandfather Angelo, but there are plenty of planting tubes in evidence nearby as another 13 acres of vines are in the ground, though not yet bearing. Angelo, who emigrated from Coselli (near Lucca), Italy in 1889, farmed as many as 40 acres of vineyard many years ago. He started a winery on the property in 1919 and operated it until 1935, legally producing sacramental wine through the Prohibition years. During that time, home winemakers could legally produce 200 gallons each year for their families. Angelo and his son Louie made regular trips to San Francisco’s North Beach, supplying grapes to the Italian community there. Glenn speculates that a little fruit may have even “gone over the hill” to a still that operated in the area during Prohibition, though information about such clandestine business dealings would be understandably sketchy.

In addition to being home to the vineyard, the land was also home to a mule-actually, several of them over the years. The last one, Prince, worked the vineyard with Louie Puccioni until 1968, but that was long enough to give a 4-year old Glenn Proctor lifetime memories. Who wouldn’t get a thrill helping his grandfather plow using a real live mule? At the animal’s passing, he was replaced with a John Deere tractor, but Prince survives, in a manner of speaking, on the Puccioni label.

While the property is in the Dry Creek Valley AVA, Glenn says its location and elevations of between 400 and 1,000 feet mean climatic conditions might be more like the cooler Russian River Valley, which has more influence from the sea. Puccioni Vineyards’ soils are “clay-based and slightly red with some shale and rockiness throughout,” according the Proctor. “They’re fairly deep at the lower elevations but get thinner as you move up the hill.”

All the older plantings on these sloping hillsides are head trained and historically have been dry farmed. They’re old clone Zinfandel on St. George rootstock. They produce good quality fruit and the resultant “Old Vine” wine is well regarded by those who’ve tried it. The initial release won a silver medal at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and retails for $28 a bottle. Will all new plantings mimic the current setup? Well maybe not, says Proctor, who appreciates tradition but is a savvy enough farmer to know that his land is varied and that he can use different techniques depending on the circumstances.

“Though there are some great qualities to head trained, dry framed Zinfandel,” he says, “it can lead to uneven ripening.” Drip irrigation has been fitted to the original vineyard and will be employed on all the new plantings. “It will help when we get the heat spikes that are fairly common in the Dry Creek Valley and should give us better and more consistent quality,” he added. Newer, earlier-ripening, rootstocks will work better for cooler parts of the property. And vertical trellising will allow more sun penetration to grapes in the shadier areas, though to keep the tradition, almost half of the new plantings-all on the steep hillsides will be head trained..

“When the property was developed 80 to 100 years ago, there wasn’t the ability to deal with drainage,” Proctor continues. But even with 21st-Century methods, things don’t always go smoothly and in a newly developed hillside vineyard he’s experienced some slippage that he will need to repair. “We did put down gypsum and lime, though, and ripped the soil before putting in new vineyard,” he says, referring to techniques his great grandfather likely didn’t use in establishing the original vines.

Actually, about nine percent of the composition of his 2003 bottling of Zinfandel is from 100-year-old Alicante Bouschet grapes grown at the Pagani Ranch in Sonoma Valley. In addition to the development of more Zinfandel acreage at his own ranch, Glenn intends to plant one acre of Petite Sirah and perhaps a quarter-acre of Alicante Bouschet. Older Zinfandel vineyards often included small amounts of these (and other grapes) and many current winemakers value the contribution they make to the final product. But by planting separate blocks, Proctor feels he can better control quality and pick these grapes at optimal ripeness, rather than getting their attributes when they are harvested as part of the “field blend” as done in earlier times.
      
      

Tending a Zinfandel vine planted in 1904.

As much energy as Glenn Proctor is putting into this family property, he isn’t about to abandon his primary career in the wine business-at least not any time soon. “I love the dynamics of the industry,” he explains. “I’ve been part of different facets of it during my career, but when you get a little older you have to decide what’s important. How do I make sure that the ranch stays in our family for another 100 years?”

His grandmother is in her 90’s and has moved into town recently, but her house on the ranch still serves as focal point for what is becoming an annual Puccioni family reunion. Last summer some 70 people attended and Glenn predicts more than 100 will gather this year. The reunion “brings people together and helps us remember who we are,” he says. Glenn and Laurie Proctor married three years ago and welcomed Joshua William to their family on October 25, 2005. Would theWXPort proud father want to encourage his son to follow in his footsteps? It’s a bit early for that, says Glenn, but he would hope that the ranch would stay in the family and that in the future Joshua would share his father’s satisfaction in that.

“It’s important to honor those who came before,” he says and suggests that a way for each generation to do that is to leave the land “slightly better” than they found it. “We can always learn by looking at the book, but we can also learn from what was done before us,” says the 42-year old viticulturist. “It’s a blending of both those aspects-that’s how you make the best decisions. One hundred years they’ve been growing Zinfandel here and it did O.K., but now we can farm it more efficiently,” he says, assured of all the modern advantages available to today’s grapegrower. After a moment’s pause he adds . . . “But I still want to take one acre and work it with a plow.”