ROAR Viticulture

Most wine producers worth their salt will tell you that quality starts in the vineyard. For Gary Franscioni and his oldest son Adam, good farming comes before everything else. It’s what we live and breathe every day, and it’s been this way for generations. There are key advantages to being a small, family-run operation with our eyes and boots in the vineyards every day.

Hands-on Farming

We are literal in our hands-on approach. “It’s all about attention to detail. There are a hundred steps to growing great Pinot Noir every year, and we carefully take it step by step,” says Gary. Adam relays that “Everything from pruning to harvesting is done by people, not mechanized. This means that we are touching each vine and cluster every 12 to 14 days. This allows us to farm tailored to the weather the vintage brings.”

As owners who are in the vineyards every day, we make farming decisions in real time. This allows us to adjust plans according to the present circumstances, whether that be timely irrigation or extra care with manual labor. “We are the decision makers, sometimes down to an hourly basis,” says Gary. The well-being of the vines and fruit is the highest priority.

All About Quality

Viticulture is our way of life, and it’s important to leave a legacy of healthy, productive land to our future generations. Our long-term mentality is reflected in our experienced vineyard team. “Twenty-two years of many of the same workers, they are like family. And they only work in our vineyards,” Gary shares. These relationships result in a trust and wealth of knowledge that sets us apart.

We carefully control yields to produce the best grape quality possible. This takes careful monitoring throughout the season to achieve balance. Shoot thinning, leaf thinning, and cluster thinning all contribute to concentrated and complex flavors in the fruit at harvest time. “This skill is part art, part science,” says Adam, and it requires a deep understanding of all vineyard elements.

Innovative Farmers

Our decades of experience with the land spurs vineyard innovation. Take, for example, Soberanes Vineyard. “This offered a perfect opportunity to take what we learned at Garys’ Vineyard, and try new things at Soberanes,” Gary shares. Different row orientation, vine spacing, and grape clones are a few ways we adapted our viticultural approach to offer a refreshed, yet distinctive profile at Soberanes.

First-hand farming experience allows us to closely observe how our decisions in the vineyard show in the finished wines. While some wineries simply buy grapes from vineyard proprietors, our fruit comes from the vines that we own and tend to, day in and day out. As winegrowers, we intimately experience how each vintage and farming choice affects the end results in bottle.

ROAR Sustainability

As owners and inhabitants of the vineyards we manage, it is in the best interest of our future generations to be excellent stewards of the land. ROAR Wines is committed to sustainable farming practices. All of our vineyards are SIP Certified, a rigorous certification for vineyards and wineries that is widely recognized as the gold standard for sustainable certification.