Today’s wine is not as ferocious as its name or the sculpture featured on its label would imply—it’s a hugely powerful Cabernet Sauvignon, yes, but a sleek and polished one. The more likely inspiration for this 2014 “Meanmouth” from Hard Six Cellars is the rugged, remote vineyard on Diamond Mountain it hails from.
This is one of three far-flung estate vineyards owned by Wayne and Kara Fingerman and it is also, now, their home. Both are ex-East Coasters who came west to make wine, and to their credit, they focused on the vineyards first: In addition to their four acres at 1,200 feet on Diamond Mountain, they also found jewel-box sites in Fort Ross-Seaview, on the Sonoma Coast, as well as across the Napa Valley on Hennessy Ridge. They named their venture Hard Six, a reference to a low-probability, high-reward roll of the dice. As a Wall Street trader, Wayne knows a lot about risk, but of course moving to Napa and taking up mountain viticulture is another risk entirely. Today’s 2014 is the reward—the first release from their “home” vineyard on Diamond Mountain and a blockbuster, to say the least. This one’s for the cult Cabernet lovers out there, but we don’t have much: We can offer up to six bottles per customer until our small allocation disappears.
The Cabernet for the 2014 Meanmouth was hand-harvested and hand-sorted before fermentation in stainless steel tanks, after which the wine aged for 26 months in French oak barriques (50% new). It was left to age in bottle for another 10 months before its initial release in October 2017, and further bottle age since then has brought it into greater balance. In the glass, it’s an opaque ruby-black with magenta highlights, with explosive aromas of crushed blackberries, cassis, blueberries, pomegranate, dark chocolate, wild sage and fennel, tobacco, and violets. As you may have guessed by now, this is a full-bodied, palate-coating, glass-staining Napa red with a luxurious feel and fine-grained, polished tannins—the overall effect is like taking a drive through the redwoods in the back of a Bentley, with no bumps or sudden stops or anything else jarring you from your reverie. There’s so much wine here it should easily last 10+ years in your cellar, but with about an hour in a decanter and some large Bordeaux stems it is ready to wow you right now: Serve it at 60 degrees and pair it with beef, duck, or if you really want to capture its woodland spirit, venison. The scenario I envision with this wine involves a few friends, a hot grill, and a table outdoors as the evening chill sets in. There’s lots of reward there with no risk whatsoever. Enjoy!