Aren Larson

9.5

Great wine for everyday drinking. Big, round Smooth and supple, slightly sweet and well balanced. Low tannins are a plus! Loved the 2016 a bit more. The 2017 is right there....enjoy! Hints of cherry, cranberry, earth & spice. Their motto, “the best Pinot Noir you can afford to drink daily.” — 6 years ago

Andrew Schirmer

8.9

I’m always wary of products that wear a an association with royalty (outside of a royal warrant) on their sleeve. Witness a certain dodgy perfume company that uses the Prince of Wales’s Three Feathers device (without the “Ich Dien” motto). The typo-riddled text on the _front_ label of this wine states that the vines grow in the “Barco Reale” mentioned by Cosimo de [sic] Medici in his decree of of 1716. What a surprise, then to look up the history, and it checks out! So what does it taste like? A sort of baby-supertuscan, just enough Cabernet in the blend to add a nice international feel and structure. A screaming bargain, the low price perhaps justifying a Medici namedrop. — 7 years ago

with Alsu

Martin G Rivard

9.7

One of my favorite Pinots bar none. It's amazing. Dark, rich sophisticated. Wet leather, spice alongside dark blue fruit. Winery only makes 5 barrels of there best block selection. Rockstar bottle. It was the palate cleanser between the 2 gorgeous cabs. My motto is., if your going to do something, you might as well do it right!!! This definitely did the job!! Simply amazing! — 8 years ago

with Christine

Ryan M

9.3

Enjoyed a lovely night with @Larissa Mitchell paired with an Ovid gem, curry mahi-mahi, & coconut jasmine rice. Cheers for Always Dreaming 🐎 - which is a great motto for our way of living! — 8 years ago

with Larissa

Jake Perez

9.1

Wonderful balance on this and extremely well made for something so reasonably priced. Richard's motto comes through in many ways on this wine. — 9 years ago

Jerry Bias

9.6

Motto Bene! Elegant and long legged. A simply beautiful wine. It's class and velvet finish is reminiscent of watching Sophia Lorenz slowly walk down an Amalie Coast beach! Yeah...sexy beyond belief this wine is. Full bodied, supple dark cherry fruit with an every so light earthy tobacco finish. She a star! — 9 years ago

Andrew Lampasone

Owner Wine Watch Selections

9.2

This is the family crest of the two cousins that married they still have the no pain no gain motto on the bottle. — 12 years ago

Kyle Christesen

9.0

Easy drinking well balanced cab..went great with steak..could be versatile with chicken , pork, or seasoned veggies — 7 years ago

Amy Harrell

10

Delightful! Lemon, floral. Nice finish. — 7 years ago

Owain Jones

9.0

Motto 7 year anniversary — 7 years ago

Brittany Bowen

9.4

Perfect combination of sweet, dry and dazzle — 8 years ago

Martin G Rivard

9.8

this had to be the surprise of the night. The wind held up after all these years. OMG, they knew how to make wine in Napa way back playing! This gorgeous beast could've been mistaken for a first growth Bordeaux!!!!!!
What a spectacular rockstar it was. Badass in a glass to say the least! I loved it and he just happened to be Shawn Rose's birth year Wine!!
Great birth year bud!!!!! This really held its own I'm on the Titans that we drink this evening. It was my only bottle but I will be sourcing some more within the near future to say the least. The only thing better was our company this evening! Thank you for making a trip down from Texas! Your motto is go big or go home so I had to pull out all the stops this evening!!!!! @Shawn R @Christine Christine and I loved seeing you. We will definitely repay the favor!!!!! I'm sure your Texas barbecue will make for some great badass pairings! — 8 years ago

with Christine and Shawn

mia

9.2

Fruity but dry... goes down easy — 8 years ago

Steve Mitchell

8.9

Since 1973 Dave has been growing Italian varietals that are all priced in the $17 price range. Dave or his son Mark will provide you a tasting in their warehouse that will not disappoint.
As their motto states "simple winery , complex wines" — 9 years ago

with Jo

Mark Crisler

9.3

Motto Benne! Brilliant violets on the nose. Nice dried flowers & herbs. A little acidity remains. — 10 years ago

with Terry

Zach Kouwe

9.0

Via Brooklyn Wine Exchange: Hardy Wallace is a bit of a superstar in the "New California" wine scene. He began his wine career in Atlanta, publishing a blog on the subject called Dirty South Wines. In 2009, he won a high-profile contest held by Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma, called "A Really Goode Job." Hardy beat out 2,000 other applicants for this stunt-job, acting as a sort of social media/pr coordinator for the winery. Upon completion of his six-month contract, he went to work for several legendary winemakers in the valley, including Cathy Corison (Chappellet, Corison) and Ehren Jordan (Turley, Failla). During this time, Hardy and his wife Kate also partnered with friends Matt and Amy Richardson to form a small label called Dirty & Rowdy Family Winery. For their first vintage, they purchased one ton of Mourvredre, the semi-obscure Provencal and Spanish variety that is rarely seen outside the context of a red blend in California.

Knowing that Dirty & Rowdy could distinguish itself in a ocean of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvigon with this curious and brawny grape, Hardy & Co. quickly bet the farm on Mourvedre, as a vehicle to express different styles of winemaking as well as the terroir of multiple regions within California. Flash-forward to current day, where Dirty & Rowdy has become the king of California Mourvedre, bottling multiple cuvees each year that sell out almost immediately.

Dirty & Rowdy is a well-known emblem of the domestic natural wine scene as well. Hardy buys almost exclusively from organic growers, and doesn't filter, acidify, or alter his wines in anyway. Sulfur use is extremely low, and the overall philosophy is to be as hands-off as possible.

That is until 2017. The fact that Dirty & Rowdy has a wine to present at all for this vintage is a miracle. Flashback to mid-July last year. The growing season wasn't going all that well. Tremendous heat spikes created growth problems at almost all the vineyards Hardy sources grapes from. It's hard enough to monitor vine issues on one vineyard, let alone almost a dozen parcles scattered around six counties stretching from the Central Coast all the way out to the Sierra Foothills. A case of shingles went from bad to worse, spreading to his eyes. Hardy completely lost his vision for three days. Kate's brother Angus, a ski instructor and artist from Aspen, drove out to lend a hand with the impending harvest. On his way out, he was involved in single-car crash along a treacherous stretch of interstate and tragically lost his life.

Then the fires started.

Hardy and Kate, like many other producers who make wines in communal "crush" facilities located in urban areas around Sonoma and Napa, had hoped to ride out the fires and continue their wine production. The fires spread rapidly and threatened both their house and their winery, located in Petaluma. They left their wine in the midst of alcoholic fermentation, one of the most crucial and stressful times of the year for a winemaker even in the best of situations. When they were able to return eight days later, the winery was luckily undamaged. The wine, however, didn't fare so well. most vats had experienced "stuck fermentation," meaning that the native yeast died before eating all the sugar. Hardy, like most forward-thinking American winemakers, is a firm believer in natural fermentation. This no-brainer aspect to his wine was now an virtual impossibility. Plus, the vats contained high levels of volatile acidity or "VA," which creates an unfavorable "nail polish" quality in wine. A little bit of VA can give lift and energy to wine. Too much, however, renders the wine undrinkable.

At this point, Hardy thought to sell all the wine off in bulk for pennies on the dollar. Or perhaps create a second label to distance himself from what was surely going to be an atypical wine. Instead, he decided to combine almost every vat of his Mourvedre for the vintage (including lots of his most expensive fruit), and go into the "Unfamliar" territory of interventionist winemaker. Stuck lots were restarted using a variety of methods. When the wines finally fermented to dryness, he borrowed a "reverse osmosis" filtration system, perhaps the most modern of all the modern wine doohickeys. This contraption allowed Hardy to literally suck out the volatile acidity to bring it down to a pleasing level, as well as moderate and stabilize the alcohol. Then he filtered the wine. Basically, he did all the things he never thought he would ever want to do to wine.

The resulting wine is something that we have never seen before, both from Dirty & Rowdy and the Mourvedre grape, in general. Much of the wine fermented carbonically in tank, so the expression is much closer in style to Beaujolais than Bandol. It is so light on its feet, in fact, that Hardy believes this wine could take a serious chill. (Hence the reason we are trying to get you to try a California Mourvedre in the middle of a sweltering summer!) The tannins are pretty much non-existent, and the fruit is pretty and pure. There is a lovely little purple flower note in the middle of the wine, and a hint of smokiness on the finish (smoke taint from the fires? Or is this just some sort of phantom association because of the context? Either way, it adds depth and personality to this gorgeous wine.)

Since their "Annus Horribilis" of 2017, order and peace has been restored in Hardy & Kate's life. Their daughter Maple turns two in a few days. They celebrated the free-spirited life of their brother with scores of his friends and ski students at Aspen Mountain's opening day last November. The motto of the celebration, "Live Like Angus," has inspired hundreds and hundreds of beautiful social media posts. And this year's Spring release of Dirty & Rowdy wines from earlier vintages has quickly sold out around the country, gobbled up by ravenous collectors, restaurants, and retailers (like this one.)

But to Hardy, this "Unfamiliar" wine, which doesn't fit stylistically or financially into the rest of the D&R portfolio, will always represent something completely different: The best of a unthinkably bad situation. "It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get that wine into bottle," Hardy wrote to us, just this morning. "Fortunately, it is fresh, delicious, soulful and somewhat of a Phoenix Rising from 2017. Though it is our least expensive wine ever, it is the wine I am most proud of." — 7 years ago

Andrea Eby

9.4

Beautifully aged expression of Sangiovese from one of Bolgheri's best. Notes of dried cherry, black tea, blood, dried meat, dusty earth, dried leaves and violets in a silky frame with a long, savory finish. Excellent +
Great work Michele Satta and Fabio Motto! — 8 years ago

Kyle Williams

9.0

Their motto "better to be a fugitive than behind bars" (dig on The Prisoner) — 9 years ago

with Sal

Olivia Ragni

9.6

I wish all domestic wine followed their motto: high and dry, low and slow. — 10 years ago

Christina Reesor

9.7

Fantastic Mexican fix-up motto! — 12 years ago