For those that don’t know, Clothing Optional is Hardy’s (Dirty and Rowdy) fun side project. College fund wines, or something like that. Took one for a spin last night.
2017 Clothing Optional Wine Co.- USA, California, Central Coast, San Benito County (2/12/2021)
Seriously interesting wine. Agree with Brad K, that the wine reads like an orange wine on the nose and palate, but your mind won’t let you go there since the wine is red in the glass. 30 days on skins and red prevailed. There is definitely an hibiscus note and a tea-like quality. It turns very herbaceous after 30 mins in decanter, waves of dank grassy notes- I was messaging with Hardy as I drank this and I joked that I might fail a drug test. Hints of red fruit give it an airy Beaujolais quality at times. Have not had anything like this, really. A blend of Muscat, Palomino, Chasselas, Mourvedre, Mission. All 100+ yrs old from Enz. Trippy wine.
I dug this wine, and agree that it’s utterly unique. I don’t know if I could drink through a case of it, but I’ll be a buyer next release. Definitely would be fun with both the red and white to blind them in one of those black tasting glasses where you can’t discern the wine’s color.
Thanks, Greg. That is a cool idea to blind these in the black glasses!
I need to try my whites next. Been meaning to get to them, but ended up going with the red last night.
D- Thanks for the note. It was great to message back and forth on this one last night!
This wine is bat-sh*&! crazy in such a fun way. The red color of the 17 a huge surprise as the Mourvèdre and Mission only make up about 20% of the blend. Subsequent vintages of the same wine are deep copper in color- more like a rich orange wine.
Greg- Glad you did the lemon caper mackerel pairing! That blew our mind the first time we tried it!
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