Jan de Weerd

9.2

A Bordeaux blend from one of our favorite small wineries on Altlas Peak where they grow small, flavor intense berries on vines struggling in the shallow, rocky, iron rich volcanic soils. This blend is less intense but more nuanced than the 2017 blend we first tasted discovering this winery. — 4 months ago

with Tammy

Patricia Schnitzer

9.3

Gift from Jack D. Nailed it! Agree with previous reviews. Very complex, tannins well integrated. So good. Everything I love in a left bank Bordeaux/Pessac-Léognan. — a year ago

Ash & Chris

9.0

You get splinters on your tongue from the barrel. Not disappointing at all — 4 years ago

Francisco Tezen

9.0

Love this! Great rec from the crew at Brooklyn Wine Exchange. Buttery toast, bright and vibrant citrus fruit and a dry, mineral finish. — 6 years ago

Kevin Ortzman

9.3

Loved it! Slightly oxidized with strong finish of warmed Cracker Jack popcorn (for you Jersey folks. johnson’s popcorn from the Ocean City Boardwalk) — 6 years ago

with Joe

Rachael Deutsch

9.0

From wine store in Brooklyn Heights. Super tanic!! — 6 years ago

Chris Borges

9.8

Car wine from Jack at Townshend. — 8 years ago

Faye Lessler

9.0

Fresh, sour, mineral. Amazing wine for warm weather!

From Gnarly Vines in Brooklyn. — 8 years ago

with Marie

David White

9.5

Fabulous layers of silky tannins burst onto the palate with rich berry flavours
Consistently rated highly (97 & 98 pts) by Western Australian specialists it is probably little known outside Australia.
It’s from Franklin River and not the better known Margaret River region.
Named after the winemaker responsible for 51 vintages of this masterpiece it’s a testament to his craftsmanship.
The 2021 is James Halliday’s Australian wine of 2025.
I think this is better.
— 8 months ago

Ray Vanderhoff

9.3

What an interesting wine. 100% Sauvignon Blanc that is vinified in Brooklyn, NY from North Fork, Long Island fruit. This is a skin fermented white. Straw golden in color, but an orange wine in style. Lovely aromas and flavors of peach, grapefruit and ginger. Beautifully funky all the way through! Sharp acidity and a lingering finish. Each sip makes you want more. What a pleasant surprise. Thanking Kylie for the bottle and suggesting that Kasey share this one with me. — 3 years ago

Patricia Schnitzer

9.2

July 7, 2021. Dinner w/KK 😁 Jack D, and J2. Celebrating KK return to CoMO, albeit just a visit. She brought pizza, I pulled out this wine. Perfect w/pizza and a lovely super Tuscan from Maremma. 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot. Slightly different than the 2012 vintage I drank and rated in March. This is just as yummy, though less aged so more fruit (dark cherry) and less earth and leather. Still wonderful. Drank both bottles I had. Need more! — 5 years ago

David Kaplan

9.6

This Soave Classico Vigneto Sengialta Balestri Valda 2017 comes from a single hillside parcel of black basaltic soil planted to Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave. The grapes are hand-harvested, fermented separately, and matured in neutral 2000-liter botti for twelve months. In the glass, the wine has a saturated, deep yellow-gold color, with flashes of green-gold just at the edge. Aromas of sun-warmed yellow peaches, crystallized honey, marzipan, and acacia blossoms emerge at first, then alternate with fleeting suggestions of beeswax, grated nutmeg, and sage, as the nose evolves in the glass. On the palate, the wine honeyed and opulent, with a round, juicy core of sweet stone fruit and honey that echoes the nose, along with plenty of dry extract, deep saline minerality, and ripe tartaric acidity. The layered sweet core of honeyed melon and almond paste is seasoned with delicate bitterness, and the long elegant finish is punctuated with fine mineral grip. Drink now – 2030 (yes, the wine is irresistible today, but according to Laura Rizzotto, a bottle that hid unnoticed for fifteen or more years in a good cellar would be a treasure). — Moore Brothers, Brooklyn — 6 years ago

Lee Smith

9.4

I love this wine, first enjoyed it in a great Sardinian place in Florence. Just received this bottle from Brooklyn and better even than I remembered. — 7 years ago

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." — 8 years ago

Paul T, Missing My Beautiful Wife 24/7

9.5

Needs a little air, great recommendation from @Somm David T
First mag of two — 10 months ago

Jan de Weerd

9.6

Well, baseball season started. I am not a baseball fan. Too boring. But, hey, never say never and now with the rule changes who knows ….. Jack winery is created by two former baseball players Chris Ianetta and Vernon Wells and we finally tried the 2019 Jack’s Pinot….FANTASTIC!! Spicy, good tannin/acidity structure and complex balanced finish. Was so worried this be another fruit driven ‘Russian Valley’ Pinot. Couldn’t be further from the truth! Had the structure of a Premier Cru from Cote d’Nuit and the earthiness of a Central Otago New Zealand. Pinot. Loved it — 3 years ago

with Tammy

David Kaplan

9.4

The Château Reverdi 2016 is comprised of 60% Merlot, 30% Petit Verdot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 12 months in small French oak barrels, 10% of which are new. First, use a good large glass. This is a classic Listrac-Médoc in a very great vintage, and it needs room to stretch out. Complex, exotic aromas unfurl gradually, and then erupt from the glass, with sun warmed wild blackberries, ripe cassis, griotte cherries, and eucalyptus moving in and out of the foreground, adding Perigord truffles, crushed violets, and freshly sanded cedar, as the nose evolves in the glass. On entry, the wine is concentrated, structured, and palate coating, with a solid core of wild blackberries, fresh fennel, and sweet black currants that echoes the nose —the Petit Verdot showing through with its muscular, fresh raciness, and the flavors are wrapped in plush, luxuriant, fine grained tannins. Drink now, for its incredible primary black fruit, or lay away in a cool dark cellar for at least a decade.— Moore Brothers Wine Co., Brooklyn — 6 years ago

Billy L.

9.8

Zoom meeting W/ Owner Bruce Phillips,
Master Sommelier Chris Blanchard-VHR Sales Mgr. & Master Sommelier Jack Mason- Papas Bros. Steakhouse, Houston, TX
Great Oakville Vineyard site with Francoise Peschon -Winemaker
💯 from AG / 98 from Jeb
2 Hour Decant, still a baby 👶! Long life ahead; fine tannins not all integrated yet. Splitting hairs, the wine is great! Enjoy if you have it! Cheers 🍇🍷👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 — 6 years ago

Bryce Bannatyne

New Jersey Sales Representative Martin Scott Wines, Ltd

9.5

Amazing from a mag. 2012. — 7 years ago

with William

David Shaw

9.2

Pale yellow white in color, excellent clarity. Sulfur, dried apricot, wood and cheese rind notes in nose. (Thanks to previous tasters, it's a ringer for the rind of a hard dry cheese like a Parmigiano Reggiano - all that extended contact with creamy lees). Apricot, pumpkin, lemon juice flavors, medium bodied. Crisp finish with lactic and citrus-orange undertones. Mild astringency across most of tongue. Pleasing balance of acid and alcohol. In the mouth, you get something a bit like the smell from the inside of a Halloween jack o'lantern (paraffin wax candle included) or an oven baked acorn squash with real Parmesan cheese in it. The 25% Semillon character comes through in the richer flavors and more syrupy mouthfeel. Elegant wine, makes a statement, or certainly reflects the winemaking effort. Not sure I love it, but it is well made and aims at being something refined and distinct. Give it a chance. Cries out for roast chicken or simple rustic cuisine, though I'll probably sip away at it the rest of the evening and think about autumn and shorter days... — 8 years ago