Where ‘my approach is to be approachable’ isn’t just a slogan — it’s the business model
When you pick up a Walla Walla Wine Country map and search for Los Rocosos Vineyards, you’ll find the Milton-Freewater, Oregon, telephone number: 541-306-1290. The same number can be found in advertisements in glossy print magazines and splashed across the vineyard’s website, too. And when you dial it, you won’t get the switchboard, the reservation desk or even the tasting room manager.
You’ll get Roger Lemstrom. Owner. Grape grower. Winemaker.
You’ll also likely get Roger Lemstrom leading the tasting — him, or his wife, Lucinda Borneman. He’ll be atop a tractor or wandering among the sustainably farmed vines, as well. He jokes that the 400 to 600 cases the vineyard delivers each year is a “rounding error” in the Northwest wine industry, but a glance at the gold, double-gold, and platinum medals on the tasting-room wall makes clear this is no small-time operation. “My approach is to be approachable,” Lemstrom says.
The cozy Los Rocosos tasting room is certainly evidence of that. Tucked behind Lemstrom’s residence and adjacent the 8-acre hand-harvested estate vineyard, the space is stuffed with shiny guitars, rock-and-roll posters, wooden masks that Lemstrom himself carved, and countless other eye-catching curios. The room seems built for fostering conversation. Indeed, the dozen or so chairs are invariably left in a circle, so visitors to the vineyard can sit down, relax and share wine (and wine knowledge) with other visitors. And, too, with Lemstrom himself.
This type of engagement doesn’t happen only in the tasting room — in the fall, Lemstrom likes to take guests into the vineyard. “Because I’m organic, you can pick anything you want and taste it,” Lemstrom says. “I want you to taste that Grenache. I want you to taste what a Mourvedre grape tastes like. I want you to taste what a Syrah grape tastes like.”
This type of educational approach is what keeps guests returning to Los Rocosos.
“My customers choose us for the simple fact that they can engage and they want to talk,” Lemstrom says. “They wanna crawl into my skin — they want to know about the grapes, they want to know about the soil, they want to know about winemaking. I want them to leave feeling better than when they walked in.”
This type of accessibility is what Los Rocosos is striving for. Lemstrom himself was late to the wine industry — he was in his 60s when he switched careers, entered wine school, graduated, and ultimately purchased his Rocks District AVA vineyard in 2016. He considers himself a grape grower first and foremost, yet by his second year he was already making wine from the remaining grapes he didn’t sell to other wineries.
Coming late to winemaking has its benefits — one of them being that Lemstrom takes nothing for granted. He likes to say that “most of the winemakers in this valley have forgotten more about winemaking than I’ll ever know,” an endearing humblebrag that speaks to his irrepressible drive to learn, adapt and excel despite his late entry to the field. That same quote also underscores something fundamental about Lemstrom’s relationship to wine: there’s no need to be precious about it; it’s supposed to be enjoyed.
That can be evidenced in a new endeavor at Los Rocosos: A sweeter, estate Grenache. At a wine exhibition last year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lemstrom noticed crowds gathering around wineries that provided a wider array of options, some of them sweeter wines. And it wasn’t just the number of people that caught his attention. It was the variety in ages. It was the diversity. It was the piercings and tattoos. And they were all socializing and engaging with each other — with cardboard six-pack wine carriers in hand.
Lemstrom soon took two tons of Grenache grapes to create a sweeter, more approachable wine. There’s no added sugar here — the fermentation process is just stopped earlier in the winemaking process, leaving behind some of the grape’s residual sugar. Lemstrom sees the offerings as essential for reaching newer wine drinkers, or those who seek something lighter and more refreshing on a hot summer day.
Of course, Lemstrom will still be making the wine that has earned Los Rocosos significant hardware — he especially loves outperforming the heavy hitters in Oregon and Washington. Those more traditional, and highly regarded, wines are ready to pour at the tasting room, you can’t go wrong with the 2020 Arenas Suaves Grenache and Sangiovese Field Blend (Sip Northwest, double gold), or the 2022 Estate Luz Cereza Brut Sparkling Sangiovese (Pacific Northwest Wine Competition, double gold).
No matter what your palate desires — sweet, dry or adorned with precious medals — the Los Rocosos tasting experience is unlike anything else in the Walla Walla Valley.
“I want the experience to remain fresh, because the actual wine itself is 10%, and the other 90% is where and who — where you drink it and who you drink it with,” Lemstrom says.
And in the cozy and colorful Los Rocosos Vineyards tasting room, that drink will most often be with the equally colorful Roger Lemstrom himself — owner, grape grower, winemaker. You already have his number.
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Los Rocosos Vineyards is located in the Rocks District AVA at 84038 Eastside Rd., Milton-Freewater, Oregon. The tasting room is open seven days a week from noon to 5pm.
