Lee Martinelli’s “man cave” is a huge red barn filled with his relics and toys. Horse saddles are mounted along one wall, and a portable wine crusher from the 1930s sits in a corner. There’s also a 1917 Hudson and a two-horse surrey Martinelli works on restoring when he’s not farming.
“At this point in my life,” said the 83-year-old vintner of Windsor’s Martinelli Winery, “I have no interest in retiring. I think it sounds boring. But I like the flexibility I have now. If someone says, ‘Let’s go fishing or hunting,’ I’d say, ‘Let’s go!’”
Martinelli’s work week is less daunting now that he’s supervising much of his family’s operation rather than laboring daily at the ground level. But when he smiles, the creases on his tanned face reveal five decades of working practically seven days a week.
Martinelli said hard work has shaped his character since he was a boy, when his family still farmed fruit along with making wines. At 6, he started picking apples alongside his father, Leno Martinelli, and at age 9, he was waking up well before dawn to help his father move trays of drying prunes to protect them from the moisture of the fog rolling in.
“I realized at a young age that if you have a crop, you have to do whatever is needed to harvest it and sell it,” he said. “If you didn’t get it done right, you wouldn’t have an income.”
Growing up in farming gave him an aversion to indoor jobs, although he gave it a shot. From 1960 to 1965, he worked at Forestville Transistor, an electronics company that operated in an old winery building, but he said he felt out of sorts.
“We were in an old winery building, and I couldn’t tell if the sun was shining outside or if it was raining,” he said.
Later, from 1968 to 1973, he taught forestry and wildlife management at the Santa Rosa High School while spending most weekends farming. In 1973 he moved from teaching to full-time farming. He and his wife, Carolyn, enjoyed raising their four children — Regina, 52; George, 53; Lee Jr., 58, and Julianna, 60 — on the farm. Three are involved in the family business; Julianna is an owner and Lee Jr. and George are owners and farmers.
Martinelli may have stepped back from waking at dawn, but today he still farms the most harrowing vineyard on his property, Jackass Hill, the steepest non-terraced vineyard in Sonoma County. The vineyard, with a 60% slope, was planted by his grandfather, Giuseppe Martinelli, in 1889. It holds the only vines Giuseppe planted that are still producing grapes.
Martinelli also talked about his future plans and passions, including restoring his grandfather’s 105-year-old car.
Question: Do you think you’ll ever retire from farming Jackass Hill?
Answer: I don’t have any plans to stop farming it. Until we figure out who or how we’ll farm it in the future, I’ll be the one farming it.
Q: What do you like about hunting?
A: It’s a challenge to sneak up on an animal that knows its environment so well. And we love the meat. There are no chemicals in it. It’s right off the wild outdoors.
Q: What do you enjoy most about restoring the Hudson?
A: It had to be prideful for my grandfather to go from a horse and buggy to an automobile. I like the Hudson, but I have a real affection for the surrey that dates back to the 1800s. My grandmother Louisa bought it to take her into town after Giuseppe died.
Q: Do you think you’ll ever fully retire?
A: I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll ever sit idle because I’m not an idle kind of guy.
You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.
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