Extradimensional Wine Co., 'Mariana's Vineyard', Cabernet Sauvignon

Hardy Wallace is one of my favorite people in the wine business. I met him over ten years ago when he had just launched Dirty & Rowdy, a label that quickly earned a cult following among people who actually drink wine for pleasure and meaning. From the beginning, Hardy’s wines felt different — soulful, alive, made with instinct and an almost obsessive respect for raw material and place. A few years back, Hardy left Dirty & Rowdy to begin a new chapter with the same fanatical commitment to vineyard sources and a pure, deeply committed winemaking style. 

Together with his wife, Kate Graham, Hardy founded Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! in 2021, not as a rebrand or side project, but as a continuation and deepening of his core philosophy: that great wine is grown, not manufactured; that energy, transparency, and site matter more than polish, power, or points; and that the job of the winemaker is to reveal, not to decorate. Extradimensional is built around organically farmed, carefully chosen vineyards across Northern California, native fermentations, frequent whole-cluster use, neutral oak, and a strict avoidance of additives or cosmetic manipulation. The goal is to make wines that feel alive, vibrational, and unmistakably of their place. They now have a beautiful, welcoming tasting room in downtown Sonoma, and if you ever find yourself there, it is one of the most soulful and genuinely fun stops in town — absolutely worth a visit.

The Santa Cruz Mountains are one of California’s most dramatic and romantic wine landscapes. Rising straight up from the Pacific, the range is a world of winding ridgelines, towering redwoods, cool ocean fog spilling through mountain passes, and rolling green hills that stretch as far as the eye can see, glowing emerald in spring and turning gold in late summer. Vineyards perch above the fog line on steep slopes and forest clearings, where cool air, long daylight hours, and ancient marine soils give wines their tension, freshness, and haunting aromatic lift. It is a place that feels more like coastal Italy or the Basque highlands than modern California — wild, quiet, and profoundly beautiful.

Mariana’s Vineyard sits at roughly 1,660 feet in the heart of this range on pure sandstone soils, surrounding the Radonich family home and farmed organically with what one winemaker once called “bonsai-like attention to detail.” Bill Brousseau helped plant and establish the site, and the combination of elevation, cool Pacific influence, and long growing season gives the Cabernet a rare mix of mountain structure and coastal perfume. It is one of those special California sites that naturally produces Cabernet with the poise, freshness, and inner detail we usually associate with great Old World mountain vineyards.

In the glass, the 2023 Mariana’s Vineyard Cabernet pours a deep, opaque crimson red, nearly inky at the core, with a luminous violet rim. The aromatics are immediately compelling: blackcurrant, wild blackberry, and dark plum layered with crushed violets, graphite, cedar, and the cool, stony scent of wet mountain rock after rain. As it opens, notes of bay leaf, cocoa nib, tobacco, and subtle forest floor emerge, giving the wine a savory, brooding complexity. On the palate, it is compact and coiled, with fine-grained, mountain-grown tannins, vibrant natural acidity, and a sense of inner tension that carries the flavors long and deep. The fruit is dark and precise, framed by minerality and spice rather than sweetness or oak, and the finish is long, resonant, and quietly powerful. This is Cabernet with authority but no excess — powerful without heaviness, refined without polish, a wine of soul, structure, and deep flavor.

This is a serious, table-worthy Cabernet, meant for grilled ribeye or dry-aged New York strip, lamb with rosemary and garlic, braised short ribs, wild mushrooms, and aged alpine or mountain cheeses. It is not background wine. It is the kind of bottle that belongs at the center of the table, shared with good food, good friends, and real conversation.