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closeWinemaker Pamela Pietri is unconventional. As owner of Vinfuzion Winery, she has been making wine in Paso Robles for five years. But her road to getting there was just as unique as her wines.
Pietri started her career as a journalist in New York, where for 10 years she wrote for publications such as the New York magazine and The Village Voice, along with several advertising agencies.
After falling in love with a Californian, she moved to Los Angeles in 1984, and continued her writing career with LA Weekly. And that was when her life started to take a different path.
“At that time, in the late ’80s, there was a lot going on in the alternative medicine world,” Pietri explains.
With natural therapies, vitamins and Eastern influences like acupuncture gaining popularity, she started writing more and more about those trends.
“So that began to be my beat,” she explained.
It was a master acupuncturist in San Diego she was interviewing who told her she should get into the field.
And she soon found herself in school for five years learning the art and science of the ancient profession, and soon opened a practice of her own in Malibu.
So what does this have to do with wine, I bet you’re wondering. As it happened, in the process of learning more about natural therapies, she learned of the strength of infusing herbs and other elements into alcohol in order to extract their medicinal benefits.
“Slowly but surely I became known for these alcohol elixirs,” she says.
In 2000, she started experimenting with grapes grown in nearby Malibu Canyon, and started putting the herb angelica into her first homemade wines.
“But it was strictly a hobby,” she says.
It didn’t stay a hobby for long.
“Once I got bitten by the bug, I was coming to Paso many, many weekends and started working for Windward and L’Aventure,” Pietri explains.
Basically working as a cellar rat, she was taken under the wings of Stephan Asseo and Marc Goldberg, and learned everything she could from the two acclaimed winemakers.
Today her brand, Vinfuzion, marries both bohemian and classic methods of winemaking.
She not only infuses some of her wines with elements like angelica and mimosa flowers, she also ages them with crystals and gemstones.
“It’s not necessarily a new concept,” says Steve Brown, her general manager and assistant winemaker. “The Greeks used to put amethysts in their goblets so they could drink more.”
And what does it do to the taste of the wine?
“They don’t do anything to the taste,” Pietri explains, “but they radically, dramatically impact the mouth feel. They soften the tannins.”
Brown adds, “I would describe it as bringing harmonies in the wine.”
A classic example of her wines is her blend of syrah and petite syrah which she calls “Om.”
Infused with mimosa flowers, which were known in the Chinese world as a calming substance, she named it with a wink towards the Chinese yoga chant.
Another petite syrah blend is aged with obsidian crystals, and is named for the dark black color of both the crystals and the wine itself.
Pietri has been leasing space at the old Sycamore Farms property on Highway 46 West since 2006.
There she makes her wines and splits a tasting room space with Lone Madrone.
She also leases part of the 20-year old “biodynamic” vineyard on the property, where she gets most of her viognier and syrah grapes.
She also buys grapes from other local vineyards, but she insists they be either organic, or at least never sprayed with herbicides or pesticides.
This summer she opened up the property every other Friday night for a film screening of conservation and environmentally themed films.
This week, the movie is about America’s green food revolution.
“We’re really committed to spreading that word in SLO County any way we can,” Pietri says.
When asked what the reaction has been from other winemakers to her unconventional methods, Pietri says, “In general it’s been received with a lot of enthusiasm.”
She admits there are still skeptics, but she says it takes just one taste of her wines to convince them otherwise.
Vinfuzion
2485 Highway 46 West, Paso Robles, 238-0208
Owner: Pamela Pietri
Assistant winemaker: Steve Brown
Cases produced: 1,200 in 2008
Tasting room hours: Friday – Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
‘Vin-Feature’ Films: Today, Sept. 11, Sept. 26
Online: www.vinfuzion.com
Janis Switzer can be reached at 434-5394 or via e-mail at janisswitzer@yahoo.com.
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