The Winemakers
Our uncle, August “Joe” Briggs has been a winemaker ever since we can remember and he seemed like the coolest guy on the planet. He gave us jobs at his winery and really encouraged us to develop our own wine style. But being a winemaker seemed like the equivalent of looking like Brad Pitt – a great fantasy, but we didn’t really think it would happen for us. But we’ve worked hard and kept a laser focus on our goals. Here’s our story.
Romililly is your typical start up business: two young entrepreneurial brothers with a dream to make great wine. And like most start ups, we couldn’t quit our day jobs. For the last six years we have been working full time, going to school and making Russian River Valley wines.
In the middle of our first bottling in 2006, we found out that before starting a business venture, you are supposed to have a business plan, a hefty loan and some really wealthy friends whose guest house you can live in just in case the plan goes south. We have since filed this knowledge in the “things you should have told us yesterday” folder.
As challenging as that first year was, our small 200 case production of handcrafted 2006 Russian River Pinot Noir received a 93 from the Pinot Report. We’d tell you all about the celebration we had that night, but a) we can’t remember all of it and b) we don’t want to name names. We were honestly humbled…and inspired to do more.
Since then, we’ve steadily and slowly increased our production. And we’ve sold out each year.
PHILOSOPHY
Wine in our family has never been stuffy or pretentious, we grew up understanding that wine is part of the celebration of everyday life. Wine has always been around at dinner time, BBQs, when the pizza delivery guy arrives, birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. Wine is woven into some of the tall tales around the beachside campire that has become the fabric of our lives.
Romililly is small and always will be. We hope our younger sister will join us soon. We would like to thank our uncle August “Joe” Briggs, for taking us under his wing, and making all of this possible. Family along with wine, is very important to us. Although some days wine comes first and some days, well…wine comes first.
So grab another glass it’s going to be a great ride.
Aaron Inman & Jesse Inman