Well folks, I stewed for hours trying to decide if I should put my two cents in (you know – “if you can’t say something nice…”), but I couldn’t “lurk” this week without making a post about this winery and its products.
First, let me say I travel to Sonoma and Napa every two years, whether I have cellar room or not. It’s a family tradition, and we take our tastings VERY seriously. The Russian River Wine Road is our favorite route, and we’ve been doing it since 1995 when I became interested in fermented grapes in lieu of Bavarian hops. That said, we like to sample and buy when we’re enamored with a complex wine, be it a Zin, Cab, or blending wine such as Malbec, Carignane, or even a solid Tempranillo. Yes, we’re red-biased.
Know that Roshambo is VERY young. Too young to truly appreciate the age and heartiness of the phylloxera-free estate-grown vines and grapes they produce. There doesn’t seem to be any real reverence for the quality of the fruit their acreage produces, and we have to wonder just how much Lodi product (or other similar imported grape) they end up blending into their own. Since Roshambo is just down the way from Mill Creek, Wilson, Papapietro Perry, etc., it’s on the way to one of our favorite wineries (De La Montanya) and we make the effort to try their wares every time we visit. However, their wines have yet to impress us, and we always leave the tasting room wondering why we let the flash of the winery draw us in, only to be reminded of just how mediocre a great grape can be vinted. You know your taste buds are in trouble when the tasting room you walk into looks more like a cross between a modern art museum and a high-end casino restaurant. The view at the bar is nice, granted, but clearly Naomi’s dream is to be an art superstar, not an oenophile. Her sarcastic view of the burden (and limitations) a winery holds is well reflected in her tongue-in-cheek approach to selling her products. Sweetie, save us all a lot of trouble and open a gallery in Union Square or Castro, okay? Leave wine to those who understand and appreciate it.
Their wines? Where would this diatribe be without a word (or two) about them? Their reds (notably their Zinfandel and Merlot) are generally without distinctive character, ranging from underaged bitterness to over-oaked flatness (sorry, don’t care if the Zin grapes were from Alexander Valley, you killed ‘em). It’s as if all the best grapes were extracted, gingerly set aside, and then summarily discarded in favor of the flavorless mass of must left over – destined to be a great Roshambo wine, regardless of quality! Of particular disappointment was their Rosé (either one, but particularly the Syrah Rosé), as it reminded us of Lancer’s or a Rossi closeout: Dry, semi-sweet, acidic, and a bit like Windex – but without the blue coloring. The same could be said for their Chardonnay, but upon reflection, I seem to remember them accidentally leaving some of the light fruitiness and honey-flavor in the wine, even though the stainless tanks seek to destroy it. BTW, you will taste the tanks with this wine, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Oh, and my comments here come from my tasting logs dated October 2003 and October 2005.
Our friends who have purchased from Roshambo in the past have told us their wines, after cellaring for 2-4 years, seemed to drink much like they did when they tasted them at the winery, but without any noticeable improvement in complexity or mellowing. To us, this means most of the fruit was absent at bottling time, and the poor grapes had the life siphoned away from them at the first racking. It also means the wine may not store/age well, but this is just an opinion since I haven’t bought any to cellar.
You’re probably better off gambling your $40.00 on any trio of Mia’s Playground value-priced wines (a Sebastiani enterprise, i.e.: S/K/N, Smoking Loon, Pepperwood, etc.), as they at least have a solid history of superior vinting techniques and very good winemakers behind the clever mainstream labels. Better yet, go pick up a couple of Armida’s amazing reds. Poizin, anyone?
Joe