More about Fine Disregard

Fine Disregard goes looking for the California vineyards everyone else overlooks: century-old Carignan and Mataro, dry-farmed hillside Grenache, a single forgotten row of Syrah, and that rarest of things, Napa Sémillon. The name comes from the Rugby School plaque honoring William Webb Ellis, who 'with a fine disregard for the rules' picked up the ball and ran with it, and that's the spirit here.

It's a tiny two-person project, started with two barrels of Syrah in 2014, from husband-and-wife Mike Schieffer and Kara Maraden. Mike has worked harvests in Bordeaux and Australia's Hunter Valley (where he fell for Sémillon) and made wine at Turley; Kara studied horticulture and has worked as a viticulturist for several Napa and Sonoma wineries. They don't own vines, instead sourcing from old, often organically farmed sites like the Pato Vineyard in Contra Costa, Mule Plane in Lodi and Cemetery in Mendocino.

Winemaking is deliberately minimal: native-yeast ferments, whole clusters for the reds, about 14 months in neutral French oak, and bottling unfined and unfiltered. Expect bright, savory, moderate-alcohol wines built for the table, which gain real complexity with a few years in bottle.