Spring/Summer 2025 Membership Release

 

We are tremendously excited to share our new releases with you. The recommended package of new releases from Napa Valley will include our 2023 Sauvignon Blanc, 2022 Reserve Chardonnay, and 2022 Estate Bottled Red Wine, but as always, you can customize your shipment simply by responding to this email or reaching out to Sean or Juliana directly. Shipments will begin the third week of March, weather permitting.

With love from Napa Valley,

Sean & Juliana

 

 

2023 Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley

We gently whole-cluster press the fruit and ferment the juice in concrete on native yeast for five weeks. The wine then ages seven months in new oak barrels and stainless steel drums. Mellow aromas of acacia and peach juice. White rose, lemon-lime, and vanilla bean, with a soft and lingering finish reminiscent of apricots and white plums. Delightful now, the wine will gain complexity and depth over the next five years.

2022 Reserve Chardonnay Napa Valley

We pick our Chardonnay by hand, at dawn. The grapes are whole-cluster pressed and the juice fermented in one-half new French oak barrels for eightteen months. Full bodied, with bright, fully tropical notes -- pineapple, apple juice -- and vanilla on the nose, and a softly-integrated almost anise-seed like note on a juicy finish.

2022 Napa Valley Estate Bottled Red Wine

Our estate vineyard is planted to a proprietary blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot, in a sand-based Haire clay loam soil on a slight eastern-facing slope. We harvest at the pinnacle of phenolic ripeness to ensure a lush, concentrated, and structured red wine that will age for over a decade. We manually sort the fruit for quality, and ferment in stainless steel tanks for an extended period. The young wine then ages twenty-two months in all new French oak barrels. Delicately sweet blackberry flavors with notes of soft leather and tobacco, coccoa and dark roast coffee that lingers on the finish.

 

 

On the 2024 Vintage

Dear friends,

Harvest is slowly coming to a close here in Napa Valley, and so far, I have to admit, it's been exceptional. The late spring and early summer were mostly hot and bright, forecasting strong vegetative growth for next year.  Towards the end of July the temperatures began to cool, and we had a generally mild and temperate August. Despite about a week and a half of particularly hot and arid temperatures in mid-September, the end of the summer has been classic, dry, balanced, and moderate, allowing even ripening in all of our vineyards.

We harvested our estate Sauvignon Blanc on September 4, with great sugar and acidity, and a near perfect pH of 3.2.  Chardonnay was harvested on September 12, and from the beginning we were incredibly excited about the potential in this year's fruit -- juicy, peachy, tropical, everything I was hoping for. We pressed the Chardonnay to mostly new French oak barrels and the wine spontaneously began fermentation within three days. We followed Chardonnay in the Petaluma Gap with Pinot Noir on September 19, from our La Tâche clone in limestone-laden deep Haire loam soils.

Returning to Napa Valley on October 2, we harvested Merlot from Block 3, followed by Block 2 Merlot on October 4, together with our Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. A portion of Block 2 Merlot, and all of the Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot were co-fermented due to the excessively low yields we received, both as these vines are still quite young and have yet to set a full crop, as well as because we dropped about 30% of the fruit set to support and encourage full development of the remaining crop and thus maximize quality throughout the vineyard.

We started to harvest Cabernet Sauvignon on Saturday, October 5, together with all of our estate olive trees. As our fermentation tanks were then full, and the wonderful, sweet aromas of fermentation greeted us every morning for the past three weeks, we took this moment to let the balance of our Cabernet Sauvignon continue to ripen in the vineyard. Our next harvest came on October 18, with our Clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon, which in recent years has formed the backbone ("structure") of our Reserve Cabernet program.

While the Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir have all finished primary fermentation, both the Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir are continuing through malolactic fermentation now.  As is customary, malo was halted in the Sauvignon Blanc after three weeks. We are continuing to stir all of these barrels weekly. As a side note, it's a great time to visit the winery to taste these "bright young things" from barrel, as they are still so pungent, racy, and yeasty.

The Merlot tanks, as well as the co-fermented Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Petit Verdot tank, are still struggling through the end of fermentation -- these are truly the nail-biting moments for me personally, as we check the sugars every morning to see if they are still "moving." We are keeping the tanks hot, and pumping them over each day briefly, to encourage the wines to finish dry. All I can say is, it's in God's hands now, and I find myself praying a bit more than usual.

As many of you know, our winemaking style has continued to evolve over time. There is an old saying in this industry that winemaking is a journey, not a destination, and it could never have been more true than it has been for us. In the beginning of this adventure, I was interested in making the most balanced wines, led by the wines I had loved when I first started working in wine retail in college -- wines like Ridge Vineyards "Monte Bello" Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. I was interested in making truly "American" wines, so like they did at Ridge, I played with a lot of American oak, and these are still some of the most interesting wines we have ever made -- and some of our favorites come from this period.

Over the following years, we experimented with a number of different styles. From 2012-2016, our wines became a bit more flamboyant, robust, juicy and full. 2017 was a classic vintage, but 2018 was very much in this style; I think of these as a sort of plateau during that period in style. Contemporaneously, however, the Pinot Noirs we were making became more and more restrained. During this period we saw the creation and release of the "Sean W. McBride" wine label -- something that I think I had to do in order to better understand my goals as a vigneron. 2019, the off-year of 2020, and 2021, were a return to a more balanced, elegant, and leaner-style of winemaking, influenced as I had been in the previous period by the winemakers I had been moonlighting for (I'll leave out any name-dropping, as insightful as that may seem).

And then, with the 2022 vintage, we had the revelation of what direction Crosby Roamann would be going in the future, and this happened to coincide, perhaps not incidentally, with the purchase of our own vineyard in 2020, and the release of our first estate white wine.

The vintages of 2022, 2023, and now 2024, have been marked by what I might refer to as a modest style of winemaking -- I have tried to take my "ego" entirely out of the winemaking process. This isn't about me, after all is said and done, it's about the wines, and I think that's what I learned by developing a brand under my own name. Crosby Roamann isn't about me, it's about great wine, and that's all, and that's what I am committed to, each and every day -- truly great wines.

And with that in mind, some thoughts on what to expect from the 2024 vintage wines: I am already drinking them from barrel, and enjoying them, which is saying a lot, I think. Young wine, you have to understand, usually needs time in barrel to develop, to mature, to soften, to come together -- that's why we spend so much money on barrels and wait so long for the wines to develop in them. And the fact that I’m enjoying them while they’re still so young, is rare.

By way of example, when Chardonnay is young, it is usually tight, reductive, and yeasty, with angular flavors. When I was first starting out, I remember learning from a trade magazine, perhaps even the Wine Advocate, that John Kongsgaard, the veteran and legendary winemaker of his eponymous wine label, said of Chardonnay that you needed to let it die, and then you needed to resurrect it, and in some ways I believe this may be true, that's why you need to stir the barrels and let it age, often for up to 18 months -- but all I can tell you today is that I am drinking this damn thing right out of the barrel at about six weeks of age and it is the most intriguing Chardonnay I have ever tasted so young, and I simply cannot express my excitement about the wine it is going to mature into by 2026!

The Sauvignon Blanc is robust and sumptuous, with our peach-syrup estate flavors but a strong backbone of acidity. The Pinot Noir is balanced and elegant, even as it is finishing malolactic fermentation and developing that warm, buttery flavor that malo always has when it's young.  It's spicy with some concentrated herbal notes that herald a nice complexity.

And it's still too young to truly discuss the estate red wines, but by all measures, they stand to be some of the most complex and voluptuous wines we have ever produced, God willing.

Just a couple more final thoughts: Thanksgiving selections are available online. Please find them here.

Also, the Fall/Winter 2024 Membership is still available for a limited time. Please join the Membership here. Joining as a Member is the best way to support our winery. Receive FREE Shipping, 10% discounts, the annual Member gift, and FREE Tastings when you join the Membership.

I'll end it there. It's been quite the morning, and a bit of a trip down memory lane.

With love from Napa Valley,

Sean W. McBride

PS: You might have noticed that the format of this email is a bit different from those of the past, and perhaps a bit of an explanation is due, if only to give credit where credit is due -- Some friends/members of the winery visited for a tasting recently, as they have been every autumn for the past couple years, and they suggested that we send this simple text email, and make it more personal, such as it is. So we decided to try it this time around. Let us know what you think? Personally, we still kind of enjoy designing the more visually exciting announcements, but they do tend to lend themselves more to a "marketing" style of communication, and I've always personally found I prefer the direct communicative style.

Thoughts on Wine Labels: Part 1 -- the new releases.

 

Thought on Wine labels ... So ... I think we've finally gotten it right. And yet I hesitate to say that, since it's been seventeen years of label evolution. I'm really happy with the labels now, and I finally think we have it dialed in, but it got me thinking. What finally changed? Why did it take so long for me to feel like we'd finally found a match between our brand and our label. And how crazy is it that it took seventeen years for it to evolve to a place where I was finally happy with it, like truly and fundamentally happy with it?

I don't really have the answers to these questions. The Great Diety above must have had some plan for it, but lord if I know. I absolutely wish that we could have shown up on day 1 with our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon with this label, and never changed or diverged in any way -- I really do -- but Crosby Roamann has been an adventure and a mystery to me in so many respects that just wasn't our path. The good news is, however, I really believe we're finally there. So let's take a look at it -- what we love about them, how we got there, and why.

First off, I'm really happy we dropped the Sean W McBride line of wines. We've gone back to Crosby Roamann for all our branding, and it makes we so happy. I was never really thrilled to have my own name on the labels -- it just felt wrong. sure, I had my reasons for it, and believe me, NONE of them were vanity. They were good reasons, which I won't go into now, but ultimately Crosby Roamann and Sean W. McBride just didn't work as a branding idea. It really started to make sense to me when we went for dinner at a long time restaurant account, and despite the fact that they carried all our wines -- Bon Ton, Crosby Roamann, and Sean W. McBride -- everyone referred to me as "Mr. Crosby." It was at that point that I realized that no matter what I did, or put on the label, most people would still think of me, personally, as "Crosby Roamann." So why not lean into it? And that's what we did.

Second, I love the copper foil tone and the warmth it brings to the brand. And the roses seem to have come out just right in the full-bleed print, rather than the inverse/outline we have been printing since 2016. Third, I love the script on the varietal and the appellation. Fourth, I love the color and the font of the vintage. Fifth, I love the copper border matching the roses. And lastly, it just all WORKS together, aesthetically, it just reads, finally, as what I had imagined, but never been able to visualize conceptually, all those years ago.

If there was one thing I would change (aha! Here I go again ...) I might add a UPC code to the bottom left of the wrap -- I'm sure it would help sales in places like Whole Foods, but aesthetically, I'm happy it's not there. Some things like UPC codes and "romance copy" remind me I'm buying a "product" and not a piece of "art," and I prefer the latter.

Happy Holidays

 

Wishing you Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year.

(A Christmas Circular Letter) By Robert Frost
 
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
 
                                                     “You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”
 
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
 
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
 
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
 

Crazy Good Vibes

 

As the 2022 harvest slowly comes to an end, the only thing we feel that we can say is that there are crazy good vibes. True, the end of harvest is always bittersweet -- We will miss the simple promise of a new vintage, and the sweet and musky scents of fermentation in the mornings, but the wines of 2022 are taught, succulent, and voluptuous, and we could not be more excited.

Visit us soon to taste the new vintage.

 

We are proud to introduce Silvano "Trino" Herrera as Crosby Roamann's Cellar Master. Trino has worked with us off and on for the past three years, only matriculating to maître de chai for the 2022 harvest season. Trino has been instrumental in growing our wine program, establishing new winery protocols, and overall improving the quality of the winery's trajectory.

We are amped to have him.

 

Sell the house. Sell the car. Sell the kids. This is a not to be missed event. Organized on extremely short notice ... Like most of the best things we do. We will be pouring a vertical of Sauvignon Blanc and some splashes of Chardonnay from large format (pictured at top).

$50/person. Members free.

If you cannot make it, we will miss you. If you can, RSVP below. Space is limited.

Saturday

November 5, 2022

4-7 pm

 

 

 

Harvest Update 2022

Harvest Update

What a whirlwind, crazy summer it has been! Exciting and challenging but full of joy. Tending to grapes is a year-round process, but it all comes to fruition this time of year:  Harvest season is when the whole Napa Valley really comes alive, and like the rest of the valley, the Crosby Roamann family harvest is fully underway.

Mostly cooler temperatures prevailed throughout the early summer, only to become blistering last week, forcing us to bring in as much fruit as possible in a very short period of time. To date, we have harvested all three vineyards of Pinot Noir from Sonoma County, as well as Sauvignon Blanc from our Estate Vineyard in Napa Valley, Chardonnay from Laoise and Maeve Vineyards, as well as Sangiovese and Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley.

We also took the end of August to bottle two Chardonnay wines with new vintages of Laoise Vineyard Napa Valley and Maeve Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains (a new release from us, and a vineyard that we are very excited to be working with).

We hope you will appreciate the fruits of our labor, enjoy our handcrafted wines and visit us soon. This month we are featuring the 2019 Old Saint George Pinot Noir Anderson Valley. On the palate the wine is still quite young and chalky, with notes of toasted oak, smoke, and clove, finishing with typical Anderson Valley forest floor flavors -- wet earth, funghi -- and a succinct minerality.

THANK YOU for being a part of the Crosby Roamann life. If you can't connect with us in person, you can find us on Instagram @crosbyroamann

Join Us July 4 for a Chocolate Tasting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join us on Monday July 4 for a special Chocolate Pairing included with your Tasting Salon Experience. Tastings available from 10am-2pm.
 

The Chocolate Tasting Experience

Partnering with local chocolatier Kollar Chocolates -- this Tasting Salon Experience includes a sixty-minute seated tasting of five wines from our current releases paired with fine chocolate truffles from Napa Valley. Our wine tasting includes both our Napa Valley Estate Bottled Crosby Roamann wines and a selection of single vineyard Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Book now for parties up to 6. For large parties, please Contact Us.
 

Don't miss it: The White Room Gallery Event, Bridgehampton, NY

We will also be at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton, NY for wine tastings and bottles to go (bags to the beach!) all weekend long - Thursday, July 14th to Sunday, July 17th. RSVP HERE for our opening night event, or just pop in 11am-5pm all weekend long.

Enjoying Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Month with Grilled Flank Steak and Chimichurri Sauce

Enjoying Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Month
with Grilled Flank Steak and Chimichurri

We love this simple steak recipe for so many reasons. For one thing, flank steak grilled over charcoal in a Webster BBQ was one of my father’s staples on the weekend. I think we must have eaten this at least three times a month during the summer. Flank steak grilled over a very high heat will develop a wonderfully smoky thick crust while maintaining a perfectly-pink medium temperature when sliced into. It makes a perfect Memorial Day or Father’s Day centerpiece.
 
We pair our flank steak these days with a chimichurri sauce inspired by our friends from Argentina, who came to visit us in Napa in 2015 for a week and prepared a true Argentinian steak night feast with multiple cuts of beef paired with this wonderful sauce. We adapted our own version of this from Bon Appetit, below.
 
There are few things in life as pleasurable as simple recipes like this one. It’s a hard recipe to go wrong with, and very easy to customize to your liking. Make it as spicy or mild as you prefer. The Fresno chile adds a delightful red sparkle.
 
This time of year, we are pairing most of our evening meals with various shades of Pinot Noir. In honor of Anderson Valley Pinot Noir month, try our 2018 China Block Pinot Noir Anderson Valley Produced & Bottled by Sean W. McBride – available online for a limited time.

$1 Shipping on 12-bottle boxes through June

Crosby Roamann has $1 shipping on all cases through June. Put a case together now and enjoy our wines all summer long!

 

Chimichurri with Grilled Flank Steak

#CookingWithCrosbyRoamann

Ingredients:

• Chopped finely:
  • 1/2 Fresno chili
  • 1 medium Shallot
  • 5 garlic cloves
  • ½ bunch cilantro
  • ½ bunch Italian parsley
  • 2 Tbspn. Oregano
• ½ cup red wine vinegar (we make our own)
• 1 Tsp. Kosher salt
• ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preparation:

• Stir the chili, shallot, and garlic, with a pinch of cilantro, in a medium bowl with the salt and vinegar. Let sit for 15 minutes.
• Stir in the remaining greens and oregano.
• Using a fork, whisk in the olive oil to make to make a chunky paste.
• Use half of the sauce to coat your flank steak on all sides. Set this aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to a half day. Transfer the remaining half of the sauce to a large (2 cup) liquid measuring cup.
• Using a handheld blender on high speed, puree the remaining half of the sauce to a form a lightly chunky paste. Serve this with your grilled flank steak.

 
 
Enjoy in good cheer,
Juliana & Sean

What is Barrel Aged Sauvignon Blanc?

Stimulating and crisp, Sauvignon Blanc evokes the fine flavor of the “wild white” natural beauty. The green-skinned grape is, after all, prized for its refreshingly high acidity and bold herbaceous aromas of citrus, grapefruit, and gooseberry. 

But that isn't to say that Sauvignon Blanc is a variety that can't be aged in oak. A bit of barrel fermentation and handpicking of slightly riper grapes can result in a sophisticated bottling designed for a longer life.

It’s not surprising that Sauvignon Blanc is quite a polarizing wine. Some believe it’s the best white wine, while others wouldn't dare put it in their glass, let alone keep a bottle in their cellars. And there's the common misconception that Sauvignon does not make a wine for aging. But perhaps, we’d wager, it’s this varietal prejudice that keeps wine lovers from indulging in the real potential of Sauvignon Blanc.

Ageing Sauvignon Blanc

Dry, complex, creamy, and full-bodied – these words describe the perfectly aged bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Nearly all the world’s best red and white wines see oak in some form before making their way into a bottle. Oak barrels have tannin, which helps a wine mellow with time, softening and rounding out the flavors. While it’s fun to catch Sauvignons while they’re young, they develop beautifully when aged in French oak barrels. They offer warmth and smokiness on the nose but still retain some of the crisp, green fruit flavors of unoaked Sauvignon Blanc.

Barrel-aged Sauvignon Blanc is a rare specialty. We know from experience that different food flavor combinations have natural affinities for one another, like strawberries and chocolate or a mustard and dill dressing for smoked salmon. In the same way, Sauvignon Blanc has an affinity to French oak. The French oak tends to impart elegant flavors of candied nuts, berries, and a hint of vanilla onto Sauvignon Blanc. Wood also molds the wine to feel creamier and broader on the palate for a rich, lasting finish.

Sauvignons from Pouilly-Fumés and Sancerre are deliberately designed for a longer life, displaying pleasant truffle aromas after a couple of years in the bottle. These wines can remain alive for decades and retain a remarkable bouquet.

Intriguingly, Sauvignon Blanc maintains its pale color throughout aging. As other whites take on a darker yellow the longer they sit in oak, barrel-aged Sauvignons remain indiscernible from current vintages.

Experience The Richness and Finesse of Barrel-Aged Sauvignon Blanc

Oaked Sauvignons have remained a sideshow in the Sauvignon Blanc story for far too long. As Sauvignon Blanc Day approaches on the 7th of May, come to our boutique Napa Winery experience new varietals of Sauvignon Blanc that focus on complexity and longevity.

Our estate bottled 2017 Sauvignon Blanc was fermented on native yeast in a combination of one-third new oak, one-third once-used oak, and one-third stainless steel, giving the wine a richer, creamier texture. Having aged 12 months in French oak, the SB17 has a rich complexity that’s striking yet taut on the palate. With softly integrated flavors of acacia, hyacinth, lemon, and vanilla bean, this wine is the perfect introduction to barrel-aged Sauvignon Blanc.

For those who treasure unoaked Sauvignons for their crispy acidity, the 2020 Sauvignon Blanc is a must-try. Having been aged in French oak barrels and stainless-steel drums for six months, the 2020 SB is wonderful now and age-worthy for up to five years.

CO2 Sequestration Efforts with Amorim Cork, a cool by-product of natural cork closures

 

 

We are proud to be honored by Amorim with this CO2 Sequestration Certificate for our use of all natural cork stoppers in Crosby Roamann wines. This number has been independently validated by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (and/or Ernest and Young). The findings, are the only ones to date that underwent a multi-closure comparative peer review, indicating when considering sequestration by the ecosystem made feasible by the cyclic extraction of cork, a retention capacity up to 309 grams of CO2 is associated with every natural cork stopper and as much as 562 grams with a sparkling wine stopper.