Debris Ov Compromise '23

90% Chenin Blanc/10% Carignan

Cloverdale, CA

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"I have a strange relationship with intention and outcome when it comes to making wine. The wines I plan and meticulously think through often turn out as intended. The odd part is that these wines sometimes lack a certain quality beyond aromatic or textural descriptions. I don’t fully understand why, but wines born out of chaos and pure intuition seem to receive more praise. I was frustrated with myself for not grasping that magic, missing the point as I tried to reproduce an effect that comes from closing your eyes and trusting the process. So, I've been trying to think less and let life’s rhythm guide both my metaphorical hips and literal hands.

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This wine embodies that approach. Initially, this barrel of fermenting Chenin was destined for a larger cuvee until I tasted it with the Carignane, and they just felt right together. It’s mostly Chenin Blanc from Saureel in El Dorado, with a small addition of Carignane rose from Testa in Mendocino County. Both picks sat on their skins for 24 hours before being pressed and blended to ferment together in a barrel in late October. I find it more rose-ish than white wine, even though it's 90% white wine. It's cucumber-y without being too green. Think of the part of the watermelon where it transitions from red to white—it tastes like getting a bit of both parts in one bite. Peachy, tangerine oil, jasmine, spa water, almonds in olive oil. While I don’t care much about the color of wines, it is pleasantly salmon-toned.

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TL;DR: “rose” thats 90% white wine. Cucumber, peach, smelling your hands after you squeeze citrus, taking away restrictions and practical considerations."

I Got It Bad '22

Pinot Gris

Cloverdale, CA

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A new wine from an appelation [Petaluma Gap] and a varietal [33 year old Pinot Gris on clay & volcanic loam soil] I've always wanted to work with. This is an electric wine, full of texture, and something of an experiment. The intention was to leave a portion of the lot on the skins in clay until the spring. However, the vessel containing the wine began to seep in the late fall. So the wine came of the skins early, and the vessel was relined. Very surprised and pleased with the results. Fermented and aged in qvevri and steel. 50% 5-week maceration, 50% 5-day maceration.

Dry farmed Sauvignon Blanc from these warmer and dryer sites can be finicky to grow and ferment. But the results are impressive. This wine is inspired by my old cuvee ‘Sapphires, Samphires, and Saturn Returns’. Using what I learned from that wine, this first release of ILWAM turned out pretty darn good I think.

Destemmed and macerated for just over a week. Pressed before fermentation really even kicked off. It was one of the first picks of the season and the last wine to go to barrel. The ferment in tank was so so so slow. The wine rested in barrel for a year. Light oxidative character tempering the lush California tropical fruit and ripe citrus and locking in the added density of its soft extraction. 

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"My name is Devin, and I make Dorsal Wines, since 2018 in California and a splash in Australia (at Sam Vinciullo’s farm in Cowaramup, Western Australia.)
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Having spent many years living all over Alaska, working on whale research vessels, as a marine naturalist for the national parks, hand trolling king salmon, cooking at remote lodges and as a preschool teacher, I moved to California in 2017 following romance and immediately surprisingly became entranced into the carnival of grapes. 

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I have followed this entrancing fully immersed ever since.  Still summers spent in Alaska although this last summer I was helping farm a vineyard so remained in California for the entire year.