Twisted Roots pair branch off
As a boy, Josh Ruiz dreamed of being a farmer.
He grewup in Salinas but didn’t come from an agricultural family, so when hewas a teenager, hewalked onto a neighboring farm and asked the first farmer he saw to teach him. Later, when he married into a grape-growing family from Lodi, he didn’t knowhowto make wine, but he asked his uncle-in-lawto showhim. And then, when he’d produced his first cases of wine, he knew nothing about sales, so he filled his trunk and drove to supermarkets and sold bottles from the back of his car.
And that is howthe accidental winemaker came to open the newest tasting room in Carmel Valley, Twisted Roots. Lacking pedigree and fancy oenology or viticulture degrees, Ruiz did what he always does: ask, listen and learn.
Through the patient teachings of his uncle-in-law, who had been tending the family’s vines that date to 1918, he learned the craft. And that is also how, within just four years of making wine, Ruiz’s Cabernet Sauvignon won a gold medal in The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine competition.
But youwon’t find the award framed
in the winery or mentioned in any of the brochures or tasting notes.
“That’s just bragging,” says 34-yearold Ruiz, who by day works as a produce manager at Church Bros. in Salinas, overseeing the commercial harvests of lettuce, kale, broccoli and spinach. “I just want you to come in and taste it stripped bare of any influences. Then you tell me if it’s any good.”
Ruiz and his wife, Julie, opened Twisted Roots in 2012when space became available just inside the entrance to Lyon’s Head Gallery. They have six offerings: Zinfandel and old vine 1918 Zinfandel, a red blend, Petite Syrah, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes come from her family’s 45-acre ranch in Lodi, whichwas first planted with Zinfandel in 1918. Her German ancestors supported generations of family members by selling grapes to Gallo and Mondavi. At one point, more than 25 family members were living in cabins on the farm.
“We used to call it the commune,” Julie said.
Josh and Julie met in chemistry class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2002. He spotted Julie and immediately sold his textbook back to the campus store so that he’d have a reason to ask if he could study with her. Julie, who didn’t care for chemistry, thanked her new tutor with chocolate chip cookies, and that pretty much sealed the deal. They married in 2004, and suddenly Josh was a member of a farming family.
His new uncle-in-law, vineyard manager Ross Schmiedt, had tended the vines his entire life when, in 2005, he became the first in the family to try to make wine. He created the Twisted Roots label, awry nod to his family’s peculiar personalities, and just as the first batch of 45 cases was ready to taste, he came down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the progressive neurodegenerative disease known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“At the time Iwas climbing the corporate ladder, working 80-hour work weeks and traveling half the year,” Ruiz says. “It wasn’t the image of farming I had as a teenager. I knewthat no one in the family besides Ross was passionate about winemaking, so I called Ross and asked him if he’d let me continue it for him.”
For the next eight years, the two men worked together, mostly over the phone as Schmiedt was too weak to do the physical labor, talking about soil amendments, potash and zinc, rotational crops and organic pest control.
Schmiedt quizzed his nephew-in-law about growing vegetables. Ruiz asked a million questions about grapes and winemaking. They beta-tested and corrected and experimented.
Schmiedt taught Ruiz howto plant rotational crops in the furrows to return nutrients to the vines and howto use mulch and botanical teas to make sprays that deter bugs. When thirsty coyotes chewed the drip tape irrigation system, he and Schmiedt trouble-shot by building a reservoir to give the animals their own water source. Twisted Roots was among the first growers certified under the “Lodi Rules” for green and sustainable viticulture.
“Ross taught me howto be a good steward and howto take care of the land,” Ruiz says.
Schmiedt died earlier this year, but he was able to see Twisted Roots open as a winery. The first blend Ruiz made he named after his mentor, Ross’ Cherry Road Red, which uses his mentor’s favorite Syrah grapes that grew near Ross’ home on the ranch. The blend is 75 percent Syrah, 5 percent Petite Syrah and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon.
“We made sure he had a few bottles to take with him at his funeral,” Ruiz said.
Production is growing, but remains very small-batch; this year Josh and Julie were able to produce 1,000 cases through Estate Crush, a new wine making facility they partially own in Lodi. The wine can be found in a few places on the Monterey Peninsula: Star Market and Zeph’s One Stop in Salinas; Mission Ranch in Carmel, Tarpy’s Roadhouse in Monterey, aswell as Lokal restaurant and Cafe Rustica in Carmel Valley. (Insider tip: You can also wine taste around the fountains on the patio at Twisted Roots and have food delivered from Cafe Rustica next door.) One dollar of every bottle is donated to the Monterey County chapter of the ALS association for research.
“People always do a double take when they see our sign outside advertising old vine Zinfandel from 1918,” Ruiz says. “You don’t see anything that old in Carmel or Carmel Valley, because the grape-growing region here is relatively new.”