Our Journey to wine

We didn't even consider making wine until we knew how to grow grapes. Starting with our first vintage in 2002, our carefully raised Pinot Noir went to several good homes (a.k.a. wineries), and into some wonderful wines, many of them award winners.

After a few years, we couldn't help wanting to make wine ourselves, to complete the process, to better understand the transition of our grapes to wonderful Pinot Noir. We helped, watched and learned until our hands were purple. Then we licensed the barn as a winery, one of the smallest in the state by volume. We named it St. Rose for the place—Santa Rosa, and starting in 2004, we reserved a few Nunes Vineyard grapes for our own production.

St. Rose Pinot Noir expresses our unique spot on the earth—this soil, weather, culture, tradition, and... well, us. It is what it is, and it stands on its own.

Grapes are selected for balance and complexity from our favorite blocks. We cellar the wine in 50% new French oak, and then blend a few of our best barrels together to bottle. Our 2009 Nunes Vineyard Pinot Noir is our sixth vintage. We made two wines: our Ten Block Blend, and a single clone, single block 777 that had something special we didn't want to blend away.

It seems we've come full circle. Fred's grandfather Muzio was responsible for turning the Fulton Winery into a chicken processing plant. As a vegetarian, Fred thinks it is fitting that Muzio's pig barn is now St. Rose Winery.

Our latest purchase is a copper still. There may be a little brandy and port in our future.

Frederic Nunes & Wendy Fowler Nunes

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