There is a question that gets brought up quite often from our guests and wine patrons: “what is your favorite wine?” This, of course, is subjective and the answer can vary based on who is answering from the Ricci realm, but also, wine is not constant. How a particular bottle affects out palettes can change day-to-day or by individual bottle. In addition, variables like mood and food pairings all influence how receptive we are to a particular wine at any given time. However, with all of that being said, it can be said with a fair amount of confidence that since the onset of our “Spazzino” Pinot Noir Pét-Nat being released, every time we pop that crown cap and let the pink fizzies do their dance, it brings a smile to our collective faces. We certainly aren’t alone in our fervor for this wine — which is why it is crazy to imagine that there was a point where it almost didn’t happen. Now that the inaugural release of this wine is dwindling down to the last few cases (as of this writing), we thought it would be fun to share how it came to be…
Through the countless retelling of Ricci’s origin story, one common theme seemed to be the concept of scavenging to make ends meet. Dale Ricci, our founder, had ambitions to turn his inherited family land into a vineyard sometime in the mid-1970’s; but at that time, Carneros was not known as a viable region for growing grapes dedicated to the production of still wines. Sparkling wine producers had found success in Carneros, but their focus was on sparkling wine and grapes used in this process generally don’t need to be as ripe. Dale went to various ag-centric banks searching for financing to get his operation up and off the ground — but he ultimately found zero success in these efforts because of his persistence to grow grapes dedicated to making traditional white wines. All these “experts” told him it couldn’t be done. Determined and persistent, Dale forged ahead anyway without the safety net of any type of financial backing. Instead of buying things that he couldn’t afford, Dale initially foraged and searched for vineyard resources from neighboring properties that either were discarded, unused or unwanted. Repurposed end posts, used irrigation tubing, recycled milk cartons for protecting young vines — all of this was cobbled together in the first parts of his vineyard, row-by-row, one block at a time. In addition, he grew and raised his own vines in his own nursery because he couldn’t afford to buy them already established. He indeed was a scavenger.
It was from this story that the concept of the “Spazzino” wine unconsciously started to take shape; however, the vulture picture found on the label was originally captured several years before the prospect of this wine was even a distant thought. This particular buzzard hanging out in our vineyard, perched on a telephone pole and likely staring longingly at a carcass of something, was a cool image but not necessarily something we thought would be featured on the front of one of our wines. In a general sense, all of our labels are meant to tell a story of sorts (check out our label stories page sometime) and the unconventional start to the Ricci Vineyards saga was certainly something we wanted to share. We just didn’t know how this photo was going to play a part in that.
Fast forward years later, we knew based on the success we had with our initial Chardonnay pét-nat bottling it was only a matter of time before we created a similar wine using the Pinot Noir grape. Yet, in a classic example of chicken-or-the-egg, it is hard to determine what materialized first — the story or the wine itself. Since Dale is a dyed-in-the-wool, proud Italian, there had been a long-standing intention to create an offering that leaned into his Italian roots. Even though we don’t grow any classic Italian varietals, perhaps serendipitously, in the vineyard there is a tiny block of super-obscure Pinot Noir that actually originates from Northern Italy and not from France (like most other Pinot Noir). It seemed only logical that this be the Pinot Noir to use for our next pét-nat project. It was then that all the puzzle pieces aligned: with the vulture image on standby, Dale’s origin story of being this ultimate upcycler, and a dedicated effort to make a pét-nat with a rare Italian Pinot Noir…it was almost too perfect.
After doing a bit of searching through Italian words and phrases, we thought “spazzino” (pronounced: spat-zee-no) fit the vibe of what we wanted to name this new wine. Loosely translated to English, “spazzino” means ‘scavenger’ or ‘cleaner’ (being completely truthful, the literal direct translation means something along the lines of a ‘street sweeper’ — but don’t tell anybody that). With the name locked in, and the story in place, we set out to make the wine. In hindsight, this might have been the biggest challenge in the whole process…
This ultra-rare Italian Pinot Noir, known as the VCR18 clone, was not something we had directly made wine with before, in fact, nobody that we knew of had either. Being that we are grape growers first and foremost and sell the majority of our fruit to other wineries, this VCR18 Pinot Noir was normally thrown into pick lots with other commonly found clones of Pinot. It seems, for reasons related to our vineyard or to the clone itself, the VCR18 is a grape that is not eager to ripen quickly and we realized that creating a pét-nat exclusively with this grape was not going to be as straightforward as we anticipated. Not to mention, the 2024 growing season was rife with wild fluctuations in temperature changes. Perpetual swings in hot and cool spells, like an accordion being pulled back and forth, meant that ripening was inconsistent throughout the vineyard.
Andrew Rankin, our winemaker, came in from the field one day after a morning of sampling brix (sugar) levels in preparation for harvest. The VCR18 berries he brought in were green and hard. At this point during the growing season, most of our red grape varietals had already finished veraison — the process of grape ripening when fruit changes color as a precursor to being fully ripe and ready to pick. The fact that the VCR18 hadn’t even begun veraison yet meant that we were way behind — and due to production schedules, the Pinot Noir for our new pét-nat project was one of the very first things that needed to come off the vine. We had talked about pivoting and using a different Pinot Noir clone for the pét-net, as everything else was further along in ripening, but not using the VCR18 meant blowing up the concept of an Italian-named wine and using the Pinot Noir that originated in Italy. We weren’t willing to sacrifice the story.
Instead, we set out to speed up the ripening in the vineyard by thinning the canopy of the VCR18 vines so that the fruit was exposed to more sunshine. In addition, we dropped some of fruit and lowered yields in an effort to have the remaining clusters receive more resources and ripen faster. In the end, our viticulture techniques worked. The VCR18 was able to catch up in terms of ripeness and be harvested just under the wire. The scavenger story, the label, name and wine all came together in this perfect, full-circle crescendo.
Now that the process is complete, we can somewhat giggle as we look back at everything that went into this wine. The reward was truly worth the effort and stress that went into this wine — from a simple idea to full execution. Also, now that we are down to the twilight of this inaugural vintage being around and available to drink, we are ready to ramp up and do it all over again. Bring on the Buzzard!
