The Martinelli family has been farming grapes and making wine in Sonoma County since the 1880s, when Giuseppe Martinelli came over from Italy to start his own winery. At the ages of 19 and 16, Giuseppe Martinelli and Luisa Vellutini eloped from their small village in the Tuscany region of Italy, making their way to California looking for land to farm and start a winery. Giuseppe had been a winemaker in Italy and with his viticulture knowledge he was hired to plant a vineyard for a farmer in Forestville. Within two years he earned enough money, and borrowed some from a local wood cutter, to purchase land of his own. Working side by side on a 60 degree slope, Giuseppe and Luisa planted a small area of Zinfandel and Muscat Alexandria vines, which later became known as the Jackass Hill vineyard. This vineyard with a south easterly exposure remains the steepest non-terraced vineyard in California today. 

100 years later Giuseppe’s grandson, Lee Martinelli Sr., and his wife Carolyn Charles Martinelli, started their own winery in an old Hop Barn at our current location in Russian River Valley. 

Today, Martinelli Winery specializes in estate grown, single-vineyard Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Syrah wines. All of our vineyards are meticulously farmed by Lee Martinelli Sr. and his two sons, Lee Jr. and George, continuing five generations of the proud family legacy of care-taking the land. With 475 planted acres throughout the Russian River Valley and Fort Ross-Seaview AVAs, our family sells the majority of the grapes we grow to other vintners, keeping a small portion of the fruit for ourselves to make under the Martinelli family label. 

Winemaker Courtney Wagoner along with consulting winemaker Erin Green craft the wines with a natural approach, allowing fruit to shine through from the vineyard to the wine. Our goal is to make wines that showcase the site in which they are grown, and we plan to continue this tradition for generations to come. 

For the first time in our family’s history, there are three generations of Martinelli’s working for the family business – Lee Martinelli Sr., his children Julianna, Lee Jr. and George, and his granddaughter, Tessa.