After planting their first vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills in 1989, Ron and Nancy Piazza spent three decades looking for a second vineyard to purchase.
In 2019, they found it in Harrison Clarke Vineyard, on Tapadero Road just outside Los Olivos in the Ballard Canyon AVA, and renamed it Bella Vista.
Located at an elevation of 1,100 feet, the 14-acre vineyard does boast a “nice view” of neighboring ranches and vineyards along Ballard Canyon Road.
Harrison Clarke was planted in 2001 and its original blocks of grenache and syrah grapes were farmed organically.
This year, Bella Vista was certified organic, said Gretchen “Gretch” Voelcker, winemaker for Piazza Family Wines and her own label, Luna Hart. Also growing at Bella Vista are the Italian grapes sangiovese and montepulciano, as well as the Spanish graciano, she said.
When the teenage Piazza, a native of Queens, New York, was growing up near Long Beach, he got a job at McDonald’s. Working his way up the ranks, he made the transition to supervisor, and later, manager.
Once in his 20s, after years of hard work and saving money, Piazza purchased that McDonald’s franchise and eventually, the 19 other McDonald’s he currently owns, said Tymari LoRe, who helps market both Piazza Family Wines and Luna Hart.
Voelcker sources her grapes for Luna Hart, but for Piazza Family Wines, she uses estate fruit from both Bella Vista and the Piazza’s original vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills — the esteemed Mount Carmel Vineyard.
Mount Carmel’s windy, hillside site grows pinot noir and chardonnay in limestone soil for several area vintners, among them Mail Road Wines, co-owned by the Piazzas and Michael Palmer, who is co-owner with his wife, Eva Ein, of Santa Barbara-based McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams. Matt Dees is the third partner and winemaker for Mail Road Wines.
Mount Carmel was the second vineyard planted in the highly regarded Santa Rita Hills region, recognized as an AVA in 2001. The historic Sanford & Benedict Vineyard, within view to the south, was the appellation’s first, planted in 1971.
The history behind Mount Carmel Vineyard is legendary within Santa Barbara County: When Piazza learned that a Long Beach group of cloistered, Carmelite nuns hoped to relocate and construct a monastery on a bluff north of the Santa Ynez River, the devout Catholic met the nuns in a confessional booth to ask permission to lease a portion of the property for a vineyard, said Tymari LoRe, owner of LoRe Consulting Group and a longtime friend of Voelcker.
The nuns had a similar goal — to retain part of the property for agriculture because of zoning regulations — and the deal was sealed. The Piazzas parked a trailer at the site and got to work planting the vines, LoRe said. The couple’s initial 30-year lease has since been renewed for an additional three decades.
Mount Carmel Vineyard, LoRe continued, aligns with the Piazzas’ belief — and Italian culture — that wine is meant to be shared with family and friends during a meal.
Voelcker calls herself “very lucky” to be involved with the Piazza label, Bella Vista’s estate grapes that grow in limestone soil similar to that at Mount Carmel Vineyard, and to make her own wines on the property.
“I’m still a garagiste (small winemaker), but with all the toys,” she chuckled.
While Piazza Family Wines’ annual case production has grown to about 850 since the first vintage in 2018, Luna Hart remains at about 300 cases, Voelcker said. Both labels are sold direct to consumer at the vineyard property via tasting flights hosted at an outdoor table by Voelcker and LoRe, as well as at select restaurants.
“We’re able to provide all the backstory and information ourselves,” LoRe said, adding that guests to Bella Vista “get to see how a vineyard’s terrior works.”
The current Piazza Family Wines’ vintages include a 2019 Mount Carmel Vineyard Pinot Noir, a 2019 Bella Vista Vineyard Grenache, the 2018 Nancy’s Cuvée (50-50% syrah and graciano), a 2018 Bella Vista Graciano, a 2018 Bella Vista Reserve Syrah, 2019 Bella Vista Syrah and a 2020 carbonic Graciano.
When I met with Voelcker and LoRe in late July, a bottling of Mount Carmel Vineyard chardonnay was scheduled for August, and Piazza, continuing to build the family brand, had recently sourced a bit of cabernet sauvignon from Grimm’s Bluff Wines in Happy Canyon, LoRe said.
Voelcker worked with graciano grapes during her previous winemaking gig at Martian Ranch & Vineyard in Los Alamos and, at Piazza, has utilized the carbonic style to give the wine what she calls “a midpalate lift.”
“It’s robust, yet delicate,” she noted.
The Luna Hart and Piazza Family labels pair well in a lineup, because the Piazza label is all reds, and while Voelcker does make a cabernet franc, her focus is on rosé, grüner veltliner and sauvignon blanc, LoRe said.
The 2020 Luna Hart Rosé of Syrah comes from Hinnrich’s Vineyard, also in Ballard Canyon, where a “syrah jungle” grows on Geneva Double Curtain trellising, Voelcker said.
For the Luna Hart 2019 grüner veltliner, she sourced from Spear Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills and utilized eight hours of skin contact, making a semi-cloudy wine with a hint of herbaceous lemon and a bold midpalate. This vintage, Voelcker said she will produce a sparkling grüner veltliner.
Voelcker still produces the wine that launched her brand, sauvignon blanc, and in 2020, she used 25% skin contact during fermentation, creating a wine that radiates “tropical fruit salad.”
Armed with a 2012 degree in plant sciences with a focus in natural medicine from UC Santa Cruz, Voelcker’s passion for plant physiology led her to Santa Barbara County.
Her first job in the industry was as harvest lab tech at Solvang’s Rideau Vineyard, working with winemaker Adrienne St. John. A subsequent harvest internship in Central Otago, New Zealand, gave Voelcker a “taste” of that region’s diverse pinot noirs, and was where she “fell in love with grüner veltliner and riesling as well as pinot gris, pinot blanc and orange wines,” she told me in a 2018 Noozhawk column.
When the New Zealand harvest gig ended, St. John offered Voelcker a full-time job as assistant winemaker. She remained with Rideau until June 2018, when she accepted a winemaking job at Martian Ranch.
Today, referring to Mount Carmel, Voelcker said: “I’m very lucky to be able to make wine from such a historic vineyard.”
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.