Winemaking traditions often begin around the table. Brutocao's roots go back two generations to a Venice, Italy, dinner table. When the Brutocao family came to the New World and married into the Bliss family of farmers, it was only natural that they would combine their passions and become grapegrowers and winemakers. Today, the family still blends their Italian heritage with their rural agricultural lifestyle to make some of California's finest wines.
Grandfather Irv Bliss purchased the Mendocino County property in the mid- 1940s. When the family began making wine in 1991, they chose the Lion of St. Mark, modeled after a lion at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, as their symbol of family tradition and quality.
That quality comes from the location of their 475 acres of vineyards in southern Mendocino County. The Brutocao family tradition of serving wine at the table means wines that are produced with good food and good friends in mind.
