ROCO Wines is the personal
project of Rollin Soles and Corby Stonebraker
Soles. Rollin is best know for his Argyle Winery,
one of Oregon's largest and highest rated.
Using fruit from their Wits' End Vineyard,
Rollin and Corby make a small amount of Pinot
noir each year, mostly for themselves, but
they sell a small amount to the public each
year. We are so please to offer these unique
and exceptional wines.
As Rollin tells it, to produce a worthy bottle
of wine countless factors come into play. It's
not one specific thing that makes the final
product great; it's the confluence of all variables.
You might have great root stock, but with no
rain the promise of great wine drops off exponentially.
Or you might have great root stock and plenty
of rain, but not enough sun.

The winemaker is constantly battling to create
a bottle of wine that, from the outset, has
the deck stacked against it. There are those
ideal years when all the weather conditions
magically coalesce so that from the harvest
to the barrel to the bottle the quality and
fate of the wine is primarily in the winemaker's
hands. But the reality is that Mother Nature
rarely obliges -- especially not so far north.
Rollin's primary commandment when making wine
is: Thou shall not impose the winery's will
over the vineyard's will. And all of the grapes
that go into ROCO wine is fruit Rollin and
Corby have grown themselves -- no blends from
different regions or different farmers.

Rollin's philosophy
of winemaking centers around the quest for
structure and what he calls "the razor's edge." Rollin's
goal is to maximize that phenomenon -- to have
his grapes ripen at the last possible moment.
This is what he calls "the razor's edge." And
it's the big promise of Oregon wine: New World
ripeness and sweetness, but with Old World
structure.
The razor's edge,
then, is that delicate balance of getting
the fruit at its fullest flavor without ruining
it. If it's an early season, there may be
plenty of fruit to harvest but the fruit
hasn't had ample time to develop all of its
flavor -- it doesn't develop its "fruit
expression." If it's a late harvest and
the fruit has had the opportunity to develop
fully, it will have that edge -- just like
the great crispness and acidity you taste when
you bite into a late-harvest fall apple from
Vermont.
Read
a story about Rollin,
written a few years ago, but quite interesting.
Especially the part about the goat!
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