Our Wines

At Dain Wines, we decided to name our wines after those in our family who came before us and influenced our lives.

(Click an image to view it full-sized.)

This offering is dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Cora Whitley Duffer. This picture is from her younger days. Is she an American Beauty or what? One of my precious memories of her is our playing baseball together. I have a lot more stories but let’s just say I want to honor her with this wine. It fits her, beautiful and elegant, understated and graceful.

This wine is made from a mix of 115 and 667 clone grapes. The wine received a 5-day cold soak followed by inoculation with RC212 yeast for part of the fermentation bins and Assmanhausen yeast for the others. We included about 5% whole clusters. Total time on skins was 19 days. This wine underwent concomitant malolactic fermentation. We aged the wine in 100% French oak, about 50% new barrels

Rebel, Rancho Ontiveros
Pinot Noir

Uncle Bob. No explanation necessary. But heck, you deserve one anyway. Can you say East of Eden? Somebody here has been watching James Dean movies! Uncle Bob’s nickname was ‘Lightning’, perhaps because of his driving, perhaps because of his choice of beverage. Why is this wine a rebel you ask? Certain wild yeasts, feral if you will, got a start on this wine early in its life. A little wildness is good for us all, don’t you think? Man I wish I knew where that motorcycle was now!

This wine was 100% destemmed and 100% crushed, and indigenous yeast were allowed to begin the fermentation. Assmanhausen yeast was added to the mix, I just am not yet at ease with total indigenous fermentations (yet). Time on skins was 24 days. Oak treatment is one year old French oak. This wine is more than a little ‘new school’. I am thinking of making t-shirts that say: “Rancho Ontiveros 2004, Dain Wines, I picked after Brian Loring.” We picked on September 24th, which was pretty late actually for the 2004 vintage in California.

Clarence Wesley Duffer. I am not sure anyone but I could have gotten away with nicknaming CW…Dandy. But I did (grandsons are allowed certain indulgences). Cora was pretty fond of him; she may have had a better pet name for him never to be revealed. Cora met my grandfather, Clarence, while he was out hunting in fields close to her home. He had to stop by her house, his Model T broke down so he had to stay and have someone cook the rabbits he managed to snare. I still think he made that up just so he could stay longer. Can you blame him? You saw her picture. This wine makes a good counter-point to the Amber Ridge, a bit more masculine if you will, with more structure and perhaps best paired with a strong-flavored meat (brace of rabbits anyone?).

Anticipation, Alder Springs
Pinot Noir

Grandma and Grandpa Deatherage, these nice people were my darling wife’s paternal grandparents. This picture was taken on their wedding day. We see in their faces hope and expectations of great things to come. We see that in this wine too. Potentially our most complex offering, let this one rest for a few years. You won’t be sorry…they weren’t.

This wine is a blend of 114, 115 and 667 clone pinot noir. The grapes were 100% destemmed and we used 60% whole berry. Five days of cold soak and RC212 yeast for the primary fermentation. Seventeen days total skin contact, malolactic in one-year-old French barrel.

Not available for 2005 and 2006.

This photo is my wife's paternal grandfather William Abner Deatherage at age 22. Here he is looking forward to life and adventure. This was taken some time before he left Three Brothers, Arkansas with his bride, for life on the west coast. A calm and serene man on the surface, strong on the inside with a sense of adventure, he had much in common with our wine from Las Madres. This syrah is currently young and exuberant, loaded with fruit but strongly structured with a life in front of it. Whenever you open it, we hope it will add pleasure to your life's journey.

She was the captain and center for her high school basketball team. When she and my grandfather married, she wanted a woman minister to perform the ceremony. She was a teacher of literature to her students and a pioneer of organic agriculture and biodynamic farming (I found pamphlets of Pfeiffer's early work in her library). Today these accomplishments would be commendable; in 1932 they were ground breaking. When Zelda Loeta Estes Smith passed on a few years ago, my family eventually got to the task of cleaning out the relics of the ancestral home of my grandparents. In the attic, my daughters and I found a stack of hat boxes filled with hats from a past era (she loved hats!). Bringing back very early memories for me, as I recall seeing Loeta (she hated the name Zelda) wearing some of these years ago. On the boxes, the name "Savage Juliet" figured proudly. A women's clothing store from the 20's and 30's, "Savage Juliet" was a favorite of my grandmothers. Very stylish and classic, it fits her that she would chose hats and clothing from this now long forgotten and long since past art deco clothing store. But stylish and classic fit Loeta. Now and then, my daughters try on some of these hats. Gotta love that! Savage Juliet is also the name of an alternative country band these days, also very fitting don't you think?

Knowing W. Ramey Smith it is only fitting he would marry the girl that was captain of the basketball team. A man with healthy respect for things literary, Ramey would be fond of a reference to H. L. Mencken and The Smart Set. Faults of Mencken aside, he was a stern and solid intellect with little patience for foolish thought. My grandfather would stand firm for that. While outwardly strong and perhaps even stubborn, Ramey was a kind and generous person as well. When the great depression hit in 1929, his college career was ended. This was a source of much frustration and depression for Ramey. He swore that every one in his family would be able to get an education or he would know why! All of his grandsons are grateful for that. I am especially grateful for the trip Ramey and Loeta gave me to the New York World's Fair in 1964. Just a shy boy from Missouri (Clash quote alert), it was a revelation for me. Don't we all benefit from broadened horizons? Outwardly stern, privately gentle, I remember long walks to check on the cattle (my grandparents raised cattle in the Ozarks) and my grandfather would sing old Celtic songs with no name I know of. When I mention this to others, they seem amazed that Ramey ever sang, at all. I guess I am the only one that knows his songs. I often walk our path and hear them still.