Iruai "Lounge Lizard" Rosé 2025

In a sea of tart, crisp rosé wine, this entry zags, trading the citrus for strawberries and cream. Notes of fresh blackberry, lime zest, Rainier cherry and Pixy Stix. Made from 100% Cabernet Franc from Four Diamonds Vineyard in the Applegate Valley, Iruai's 2025 Rosé is wild, rocky, and bounding with a just-pied-in-the-face frisson of big blackberry energy. Enjoy in the sun, in good company and in quantity. 250 cases produced.

Iruai (pronounced “eer-oo-eye”) is a boundary-pushing nomadic natural wine project from Chad and Michelle Westbrook Hinds, based in the mystical Shasta-Cascade mountains in the Siskiyou wilderness of far northern California. Their wines blend Alpine grape varieties, wild terroir and natural winemaking in a style they jokingly call “Californian Alpine.”

They seek to make wine with a sense of place by employing no additives and removing no character. Their goal in the vineyard is to let the vines thrive like they would in the wild, and in the cellar, to shepherd each ferment through its own natural development and evolution.