A master of cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Winemaker Steve Rogstad has spent most of his professional life making wine in the Los Carneros appellation. Since 2002, Steve has guided the winemaking at Cuvaison, crafting wines that have earned renown for their seamless balance and vineyard-inspired depth and complexity. Working with Cuvaison’s acclaimed estate vineyard for more than 15 years, Steve refined a vineyard-driven approach to winemaking that takes advantage of the site’s remarkable diversity, including doing as many as 80 individual fermentations each vintage—a small-batch, labor-intensive approach that defines Cuvaison’s estate-grown wines. Born and raised in North Dakota, Steve fell in love with wine while traveling abroad and living above a wine shop in Paris.

While attending the masters of enology and viticulture program at UC Davis, Steve worked at La Crema, where he gained invaluable hands-on experience making Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with legendary winemaker Dan Goldfield. After university, Steve joined the team at Saintsbury, before being named the assistant winemaker at Rombauer. Prior to joining Cuvaison, Steve spent six years as the winemaker at Clos Pegase in Los Carneros. Since becoming winemaker in 2002, Steve has been widely recognized for making many of the finest wines in Cuvaison’s history. “Great wines are the culmination of years of knowledge and experience,” says Steve. “For 15 years, I have had the incredible fortune to work with a grand cru-caliber vineyard to create wines that honor Cuvaison’s roots, while also helping to lay the foundation for the next fifty years.”