Testa Vineyards (Winemaker, Owner, & Manager)

Maria Testa Martinson is a part of a generations-long heritage at Testa Vineyards. She is the great-granddaughter of Gaetano and Maria Testa, who established Testa in 1912. They cleared the land using Belgian horses and dynamite, with use of the latter likely impossible today.

Maria feels that her interest in wine was inevitable, given that she was surrounded by family dedicated to winemaking traditions. Her parents had been selling fruit to wineries in Mendicino and Sonoma counties, as had her grandparents and great-grandparents. In the Italian tradition, they all made wine for their own consumption. Not only that, but her great-grandfather managed to survive the challenges to the wine industry presented by Prohibition by traveling to San Francisco and selling fruit to home winemakers.

As manager, winemaker, and general “do-it-all” at the winery since 1969, Maria made her first wine in 2004, when she opted to make a barrel of wine from the Charbono grapes on her property and bottled it in honor of her great aunt’s 90th birthday. Her effort was a big success with her family and friends and inspired her to make two barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest is history.

Maria is now crafting a number of wines produced from the varietals planted on the 25-acre Testa Ranch, including Carignane, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Barbera, Grenache, and Charbono; Cabernet Sauvignon is available from the family’s nearby Gusto Vineyard. The vines are farmed biodynamically. She uses native yeasts exclusively and employs traditional methods in producing her wines. As a result, her wines are characterized by having soft tannins, earthiness, and being true to their varietal. It is a credit to Maria’s collaborative nature that she readily acknowledges the advice and assistance provided by local winemakers throughout the process of vinification.