The Last of ROAR 2023
That Will Ever Come Through Wholesale.

Dear Artisans,

Every time our ROAR allocation lands, it sells out the same day. That has been true for years — and it has never once required me to be clever about it. I send an email, the phone goes, the wines leave.

This one is different.

ROAR has pulled the last stock of these vintages out of distribution. They are going back into the winery library — released direct from Gary and his sons on their own terms and at their own pricing. What is sitting in our shop right now is the last cases of each that came through wholesale. There is no reorder to place. I already tried.

So let me tell you what you are actually looking at.

Gary and Rosella Franscioni planted Rosella’s Vineyard around their family home in 1996, then Garys’ Vineyard in 1997 with the Pisoni family. The first ROAR bottling came out in 2001. Sierra Mar and Soberanes followed about a decade later. Total production across the entire portfolio is five to six thousand cases a year — a mid-size Napa winery makes ten to twenty times that.

And they do not even keep most of their own fruit. The Franscionis sell about seventy-five percent of what they grow to other wineries, retaining a quarter for the ROAR label. If you have enjoyed a Kosta Browne, Testarossa, Siduri or Twomey bottling from Rosella’s or Garys’, you have already had their farming in your glass and paid somebody else’s markup for it.

What reaches an independent shop like ours is a sliver of a sliver. This time it is the last sliver.

Quick reference.
Tap any wine to order.

A ROAR Pinot beat DRC
in front of Robert Parker.

In 2006 Robert Parker hosted a blind Pinot Noir tasting at the Culinary Institute in Napa. The lineup included DRC Grands Echezeaux, Dujac Clos de la Roche, Clos de Tart, Roumier Bonnes-Mares and Jadot Chambertin-Clos de Beze. The wine that came out on top was a ROAR Garys’ Vineyard Pinot Noir, and Parker, who took it for French while tasting, has followed the estate ever since.

Parker’s own account: “Ever since a ROAR Pinot Noir blew away a great number of Burgundies in a blind tasting I hosted at the Culinary Institute in Napa, I have taken a special interest in following the wines from this producer. They go from strength to strength.”

Karen MacNeil, who wrote The Wine Bible, put it another way: “Saying ROAR to a Pinot Noir lover is like saying Ferrari to a person who loves cars. Some of the most luscious, complex, and rich Pinots are made by this small producer.”

Twenty-two inches of rain,
and a summer that never rushed.

2023 in the Santa Lucia Highlands was the kind of year that rewards patience at every stage. Twenty-two and a half inches of winter rain against a typical fourteen refilled the water table and gave the vines healthy canopies to work with. A mild spring and a mild summer followed, and the fruit ripened slowly and evenly right through a long hang.

You can taste it in the scores. Bright acidity holds up wines that in a hotter year would have gone soft — and the tannins arrived ripe rather than aggressive. Vinous kept using the word energized. Dunnuck called the Rosella’s “Volnay-like.” This is the vintage people will be trying to buy back in five years.

ROAR Pinot Noir "Rosella’s Vineyard" 2023

The first vineyard the Franscionis planted, wrapped around their own house and named for Gary’s wife. Sandy loam, fog off the Salinas Valley, lemon trees along the western edge, and rows climbing from River Road toward the ridge. It is also always the last block ROAR picks.

Layered red berry and cherry cream, floral perfume, jasmine tea and a little leather. The palate is supple and textured with a saline thread running under it, and the finish goes long and lifted. Dunnuck found a “brilliant, Volnay-like perfume” and gave it 96. Wine Enthusiast gave it 96 the same season. Robb Report named it the best Central Coast Pinot Noir of the year.

The Last Case · No Reorder

ROAR Pinot Noir "Sierra Mar" 2023

The dramatic one. High-elevation estate fruit off a site that was, by ROAR’s own admission, an enormous undertaking to plant and is still a difficult one to farm. Violet perfume, black cherry, plum and sagebrush, then clove and vanilla and violet pastilles, with blueberry arriving late.

Vinous, Jeb Dunnuck and James Suckling all landed on 95 and described three noticeably different wines — Vinous heard menthol and underbrush and called it massive, Dunnuck found sappy flowers and velvet tannins, Suckling tasted cinnamon and cedar and star anise. That kind of disagreement about a wine that everyone scores identically usually means there is a lot going on in the glass.

The Last Case · No Reorder

ROAR Pinot Noir "SLH" 2023

The appellation bottling, drawn from vineyards spanning twelve miles between the cool north and the warmer south of the Santa Lucia Highlands. On paper it is the entry point. Wine Enthusiast scored it 96 with an Editor’s Choice — the same number they gave the single-vineyard Rosella’s.

Matt Kettmann explained why in his note, and it is the most useful sentence anyone wrote about ROAR this year: the regional cuvees are often better than the sum of their parts. Vanilla, leather and chaparral, then blackberry, a hint of Picholine olive and black licorice, and a long creamy finish of cherry candy and cinnamon. At fifty-four ninety-nine it is the one to buy by the case.

The Last Case · No Reorder

ROAR Chardonnay "SLH" 2024

The only white left, and the one people forget ROAR even makes until they taste it. Fruit from Rosella’s, Soberanes and Sierra Mar, fourteen months in French oak, full malolactic, built in the rich Californian idiom rather than the lean one.

Tropical and stone fruit lifted by florals and a touch of cream, then a smooth, delicately lush palate of citrus and subtle caramel, finishing on lemon and honeysuckle with a saline edge. Decanter gave it 90 and catalogued the oak spice, baked apple and vanilla honestly. If you like Chardonnay that tastes like somebody committed to a decision, this is that wine.

The Last Case · No Reorder

There was never very much
of it to begin with.

Five to six thousand cases a year, total. Four hundred and fifty-five cases of the 2023 Rosella’s, which is a Burgundian number and not a Californian one. Most of that goes straight to ROAR’s own mailing list — which has a multi-year wait.

We get an allocation once, sometimes twice a year — and it has never lasted a full day. This is the final one. After these leave the shelf the only route to these wines is the winery library, at library prices, whenever Gary decides to open it.

Last cases of each,
and then the door closes.

Four wines. A double ninety-six, a triple ninety-five, a ninety-six on the appellation Pinot and a Chardonnay that Decanter liked at ninety. Final cases of each, and then they are gone from wholesale for good.

If you have been meaning to try ROAR, this is not a soft deadline that I am dressing up. There is genuinely nothing behind it. Take the Rosella’s if you take only one. Take all four if you want to understand why the Franscionis can sell three quarters of their fruit and still have a waiting list.

With gratitude for your loyalty,

— James Tran

The Last Cases Of Each · No Reorder Behind It

Call 650-917-8080, text 650-880-3553, email sales@artisan.wine, or chat with us