On occasion, when we serve a French wine with dinner, we are disappointed. This is especially true if we have tasted the same wine in France. Tasting wine in the region where it is produced, well... that's a horse of a different color. So it was with white wines of the Rhône; we had never been enthusiasts. However, after spending a couple of weeks in Provence, tasting scads of local wines, we changed horses in midstream and were anxious to produce wine from the same varieties at Navarro. The white wines, frequently blends of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier, astounded us with their rich texture and generous mouth-feel. During the 2012 harvest, we produced wines from Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier grapes. In the spring, we selected a blend of about two thirds Roussanne and one third Marsanne, a ratio that was maintained in our 2013 and this 2014
White Roan vintage. Naming a wine “67% Roussanne and 33% Marsanne” is a mouthful so we horsed around and decided to name it
White Roan, in honor of a white horse we had met next to a gypsy wagon in France.