2019 Crosby Roamann Pinot Noir Jewel of Skyland Santa Cruz Mountains

The Santa Cruz Mountains are producing some of the finest Pinot Noirs in California right now. 

Antonio Galloni once wrote that the area offers “pedigreed wines of extraordinary nuance, delineation and class.” He even made Rhys Vineyards—whose Pinot Noirs routinely trade for over $100—his 2023 Winery of the Year.

So when we tasted the Crosby Roamann Pinot Noir, made with the utmost care by husband and wife garagistes from a miniscule 1-acre, dry-farmed, and organic vineyard, we expected at least a $60 price tag—and we were stunned when we found out what we could get it for. 

The founders and driving force behind Crosby Roamann are Sean and Juliana McBride, a couple who both fell in love with wine independently before they even found each other: Sean at a wine and cheese store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Juliana while studying abroad in Italy. A fateful trip up the California coast sealed the deal, and in 2010 they decided to go pro. They quit their day jobs, packed up the Volvo station wagon with their daughters and belongings, and pointed it west, straight out of Brooklyn. 

For the 2019 Jewel of Skyland, Sean found a tiny postage-stamp of a vineyard south of Highway 17 that had been dry-farmed from the beginning, an easy thing to do in these mountains which receive substantial winter rains. He harvested just shy of three tons and trucked them to the winery in Napa, where they partially destemmed and fermented on native yeasts for fourteen days—then pressed by hand, which is unheard of. The wine is truly a labor of love, which makes it an honor to be able to bring it to you.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 13.00%
• Enjoy right away
• Now – 2030
• % Pinot Noir
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork