Rod Berglund

The Path

Rod Berglund is winemaker of Joseph Swan Vineyards, and the title points to a long practice of nuance. Before experience had a name, there was the work itself: learning, tasting, waiting, and returning to the vines and cellar with the discipline that wine demands. This kind of career does not announce itself loudly. It accrues through harvests, until the role and the maker are difficult to separate.

The Work Today

Since becoming winemaker there in 1988, Berglund has held the dual role of owner and winemaker. At Joseph Swan Vineyards in Forestville, that means making wines that favor poise over flourish. Balance leads the work; site is treated as a presence, not a backdrop; elegance functions as structure rather than ornament. The wines are shaped to keep the vineyard legible in the glass. The craft logic is plain in the description. Balanced wines depend on restraint; site-driven wines require the vineyard to remain visible; elegance comes from proportion. “Sense of place” is not a slogan here, but the aim. In Berglund’s work, that translates into timing, boundaries, and the judgment to shape a wine without overriding what the fruit and site already offer.

Signature

Rod's signature wines include 2023 Anderson Valley 50th Anniversary Riesling. The name places the wine in a moment of recognition, while still fitting the measured, origin-conscious approach associated with Berglund’s work.

In Their Words “As I look back on it I think about how much things have changed, and how they have stayed the same.” “It is hard to believe that this will be my 28th harvest.”

Acclaim

The key markers in Berglund’s career are the roles themselves: founding winemaker at La Crema Vinera, winemaker at Joseph Swan Vineyards in Forestville, and owner and winemaker today. Taken together, they outline a career grounded in steady craft rather than spectacle. That recognition is also carried by the style of wine associated with his name: balanced, site-driven bottles that emphasize elegance and sense of place. The brief is exacting. It asks the wine to keep its origin visible, and the maker to stay aligned with what the vineyard gives, vintage after vintage.