2014 Dirty & Rowdy & Enfield Antle Vineyard Red Wine
Chalone, California
On Saturday, I attended my second Dirty & Rowdy interactive tasting event. My write-up of the first event, which focused on the 2018 D&R Skin and Concrete Egg Fermented Semillon and 2016 D&R Maple’s Spring Street Petit Sirah, is available here.
Hardy Wallace, the founder of D&R, hosted with a special guest, John Lockwood, of Enfield Wine Co. Hardy and John farm Mourvèdre and Pinot Noir, respectively, in the Antle Vineyard in the Chalone AVA. These are two grapes that you do not find in the same climate, let alone in rows next to each other. To blend them into a wine with a 50/50 mix is completely unexpected.
I kept writing contradictory tasting notes about this wine. Soft and delicate, but with tremendous backbone. Ethereal, but exploding with energy and tension. Light-to-medium bodied, but substantial and weighty. It is a wine that makes no sense, but it works, and the experience is seamless.
I love the purity of the fruit here with cherries, strawberries, and red currents on the nose. You also get a hint of the Chateau Rayas signature that I always attribute to candied orange. Secondary characteristics have started to develop including menthol, violet, grilled herbs, and leather. All of this rolls into a lengthy and chalky finish.
Give this a 2 hour decant and it really sings.
94 points.
