Friendship, love of wine lead to new company

Wines from Coombsville are known for a more “old world” taste, according to veteran wine maker Rudy Zuidema. The cool temperatures of the area, near Napa Valley, California, allow grapes to ripen slowly and develop their flavors.

What these wines are not typically known for is a connection to the Birmingham area. Inverness residents Frank and Janet O’Neil, along with former Mountain Brook residents Rob and Fran Francis, however, are working to bridge that gap.

After a more than 35-year friendship, coupled with a shared love of wine, the O’Neil and Francis families started Southern Roots Wines. The company released its first wine, a 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon, at the start of the new year.

“We always enjoyed wine,” said Francis, who moved from Mountain Brook to Napa Valley 14 years ago. “Frank had even worked at a wine shop during his early professional days as a part-time job, and that cultivated his interest.”

His move to Napa Valley was unrelated to wine, but as their families visited back and forth between Birmingham and California, the idea of making their own wine grew. Their interest in and knowledge of wine had also grown, O’Neil said, through his job at a fine wine shop and trips to wineries.

Francis had been selling grapes from his property, which is located in the Coombsville American Viticultural Area (AVA), to another winery, and they ended up choosing to take the leap.

“This just became a natural outgrowth of that shared interest,” O’Neil said.

The first step was to find a wine maker, and Francis reached out to Zuidema — a neighbor in the valley, who Francis met at parties and other gatherings. Zuidema has made wine for the last 30 years and said when Francis approached him with the idea, he was excited to work on Southern Roots Wines.

“Making a small, intimate lot of wine is really, really fun,” Zuidema said. “Having to make tens of thousands of cases [of wine] taste that great is much, much harder.”

Coombsville lends itself to strong wines, Zuidema said, because of the cool climate which comes from the coast’s “marine influence.” It’s one of the newest vineyard areas in Napa, Francis said, and produces high-quality red wines. The slow-ripened grapes have an earthy quality, similar to a French wine, he said, and he aims to capture those qualities in the Southern Roots wines.

“Of course, starting with really great products to begin with is how great wines are produced,” he said. 

Even though Zuidema has produced other wines from Coombsville AVA, going into a new wine is always scary.

“You sort of go in a little bit blind and a little bit nervous,” he said. “My first impression [of the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon] was that the vineyard has a little more luscious texture to it. It’s a little bit softer than the hillside group that I’m working with just up the street.”

The 2015 wine is the first vintage from Southern Roots, and they plan to bottle the 2016 vintage in August 2018. When the 2017 vintage is bottled, O’Neil said, they’ll have commercial quantities of their wine available.

“We think the quality of the wine is just going to get better,” he said.

The taste, however, is only half of the appeal, O’Neil said. As they reach more markets with their wines, O’Neil and Francis agreed that their story is another quality that may attract enthusiasts to their product. 

Their families were together when the first 2015 wine was bottled, Francis said, and they were able to enjoy the wine together. 

“I think we’ve most enjoyed just the whole process of making the wine and tasting the wine and sharing it with the people we’ve shared it with,” Francis said. “The beauty of the wine is a social facilitator, and it helps people enjoy food. It helps people enjoy each other’s company.”

Based on experience and participation in the premium wine community, they also expect individuals to get enjoyment out of explaining how Southern Roots connects Birmingham to Napa Valley, O’Neil said.

“I think people who are just looking for a great bottle of wine and want the connection between Napa and Birmingham will find that Southern Roots is something great for them,” O’Neil said.

To facilitate conversation, he added, they made sure to include on the bottle labels two “Easter eggs” which tie back to the story of Southern Roots.

As of press time, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon from Southern Roots Wines could be ordered through the winery website for $90 per bottle. 

The bottles are shipped through mail order across the country, or in Alabama, to a local ABC store to accommodate state law. 

For more information, go to southernrootswines.com.