Never accuse Joseph or Genevieve Roche of taking a pessimistic outlook upon life. Both practicing physicians, they moved their young family to their newly purchased ranch in southern Sonoma Valley in 1977 and began to dream about their new life in the wine country. Both being brought up in farming families, the Roches always wanted to own property in the wine country, where they could grow premium grapes. Unfortunately, locals often told them how it was too cold to grow grapes on their land, being so close to San Pablo Bay. They amiably accepted that, and settled into their new ranch. They purchased over 100-head of cattle and continued the property's long history of cattle ranching.

In the 15 years Roche Carneros Estate Winery has been making wine, customers have been able to watch the Roche Family and Winery grow together. Those rambunctious children and teenagers in 1989 are all adults now and the face of Roche Winery has definitely changed. We're happy to have two of our children, Mara and Brendan, now at the winery full-time. Mara is the Director of Hospitality, and Brendan has assumed the certainly broad role of General Manager. Our two other children live and work outside of Sonoma. Sara works in San Francisco as a Kindergarten teacher, and Carrie, lives in Southern California and works for the city of Los Angeles in the Public Arts Division. Although Sara and Carrie are away from Sonoma, they still both call Roche Winery home and our faithful Roche customers family.