April 22, 2022 – Joshua Stewman is an architect by trade, but a builder in his heart. The eldest of four boys, he grew up in Boulder Creek. His father was a building contractor and his Mom did drafting services. “We grew up loving Boulder Creek!” he recalls. “Our backyard was the forest and creeks and salamanders. We couldn’t imagine anything better.”
But, his parents did. They got tired of living under the trees and wished for more sunshine, eventually purchasing a mountainside parcel in 1995 and building a new home near Love Creek in Ben Lomond.
Joshua went off to college at Humboldt State to earn a degree in history and then to China to teach English and get some life experience.
“I stayed for 5 years, between 1997 and 2002,” he recalls. “It was fascinating! As a single guy and super adventurous, I only knew four words. It was a town of two million people, a university town. Whenever I would go shopping, I would be the only foreigner. People leaned out of second story windows and shouted out ‘Hello!’ to practice their English. It was amazing to watch the cultural changes that were happening so rapidly.”
Then he got married and his wife Sarah joined him in China, “One day Sarah asked me what kind of work I would enjoy doing knowing that I wasn’t going to be paid,” Stewman recalls. “I looked at teaching and maybe getting a masters in history to become a professor, but as much as teaching was rewarding, there was something else I wanted to do, and that was building.
When I was younger, I swung a hammer and worked for contractors, and loved the smell of lumber and creating houses. So, we moved to Illinois, where my wife is from, and I got a masters in architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I came back here to look for work and landed in Pacific Grove.” His day job is at his firm there, Homelife Design Studio.
Once the couple relocated to California, they began visiting his parents in Ben Lomond with their three boys, just hanging out. Some wine drinking might have occurred, something that he hadn’t been into before. After awhile, the wine bug bit, and they began talking about planting vines. “My parent’s home is up Love Creek and Roberts Road,” he says. “It’s a southeast facing slope, but a lot of ridgetop and great light. It was super overgrown with scotch broom and poison oak, which we had for months as we did the clearing!”
Helping them get started with the ¼-acre vineyard project in 2008 was local vineyard consultant Rick Anzelone. Says Stewman, “He showed up in his Toyota truck and walked us through the basics. We planted 400 vines, all Pinot Noir, with plant material from Duarte. We sprayed, and pruned and did all the maintenance.”
Stewman and his father built a small casita to be a little cellar next to the vines. His youngest brother Tom, who is the vineyard manager, now lives there with his girlfriend.
Right from the outset, Stewman sought winemaking advice from Rhys winemaker Jeff Brinkman, whom he met thanks to being on the Rhys mailing list and having purchased their wines for several years. Brinkman was extremely helpful from the outset, steering them towards barrel choices (François Frères) and preferred processing methods. Later, as they planted more acreage, he would help them identify areas of the vineyard that had special promise.
“Our first harvest was only 5 gallons worth, but it was super rewarding! Jeff told us we’d have to charge $500 a bottle to break even! It was so much fun, but a ton of work,” he says.
And yet, they were hooked and began to plant more vines, as a vision for creating their own brand began to emerge. In 2012, they planted two more acres. Then, they began noticing an undeveloped property next door that had potential. “We cold-called the owner, an older gentleman who had purchased the land because it was next door to where his grandmother lived. He had planned to sell it when his grandkids headed to college,” says Stewman.
Joshua and Sarah purchased that 21-acre parcel next door to his parent’s property in 2011. “We planted our first vineyard block on this new Roberts Ranch parcel in 2012. Currently, we have 4 acres in vines, all Pinot Noir,” he says, adding that the older vineyard parcels are mostly 667, 777 and 2A, while the newer plantings include Calera, Dijon 828, Mount Eden and Wandeswil.
Stewman says the Ben Lomond property really spoke to him, “We have a 280 degree view of the hills from our parents place. When we bought the Roberts Ranch parcel, it was totally overgrown, and you could not even see the ridge. When we developed the vineyard, we looked up the hillside, and realized just how awesome it was! The light was so incredible.”
From 2010 to 2016, Roberts Ranch wines were made in his parents’ cellar. Deciding they needed a proper winery on the property, they obtained a Farm Service Agency loan and began building the winery in 2017. The facility was completed last summer, the same month they got their ABC license, and have been slowly building their wine club, realizing they needed some breadth as they grew.
They began buying Chardonnay from the Lieberman vineyard in Woodside in 2018, and have also gotten some Pinot Noir from Lester Family Vineyard in Pleasant Valley. Alas, 2020 was a total bust at the Roberts Ranch estate, due to the CZU fire, but they did get some Pinot Noir from Lester that tested low for smoke. Thankfully, vintage 2021 is looking really good, all around. In the cellar are a whopping 8 barrels of Estate Pinot for 2021.
They use Alesia Viticulture services for tending the estate vineyard and picking the fruit. Most of the crew lives in the area anyway, which is convenient, another helping hand, courtesy of their relationship with Jeff Brinkman.
Stewman says they prefer picking for fresh fruit flavors and the wines are in the high 12s and mid-13s for alcohol, a leaner style he appreciates. Brinkman has pointed out the great potential of their hillside tracts to produce wines of good structure, due to the elevation.
“We’ve done blind tastings with him,” marvels Stewman. “He is just fascinating and such a wealth of knowledge. What was amazing to me is he was able to call out distinctions in our vineyard, from blocks terraced side by side. There is such a huge difference between the top and bottom of hill! He helped us to see these differences. Now we isolate smaller lots for fermentation, and barrel them separately.”
Roberts Ranch Vineyards went “live” last year with its first public club event in November, and 50 to 60 people in attendance. Everyone had a great time and Stewman says they plan to open for tasting by appointment sometime this summer.
His brother’s girlfriend comes from an Italian family, loves to entertain and is excited about doing cheese boards for the tastings. They’ve milled some Madrone and redwood from the property, from which a furniture maker in Monterey made them cellar doors for the winery. They might have custom serving boards made as well.
This is a brand that is definitely building into something worth watching, and tasting.
The Roberts Ranch crew will be pouring a selection of their wines at the Santa Cruz Mountains Grand Tasting at The Mountain Winery this Sunday.
More information at: robertsranchvineyards.com
About the author
Laura Ness is a longtime wine journalist, columnist and judge who contributes regularly to Edible Monterey Bay, Spirited, WineOh.Tv, Los Gatos Magazine and Wine Industry Network, and a variety of consumer publications. Her passion is telling stories about the intriguing characters who inhabit the fascinating world of wine and food.
