NOVEMBER 2019 119
2017 TWO WOLVES
GRENACHE ROSÉ
Moore refused to publicly
release this initial vintage of
her lively, Grenache-based
rosé—“If I put a pink wine out
first? ‘P!nk’s rosé’? That’d
be awful!”—but the upcom-
ing 2019 vintage will actually
be available next spring.2016 TWO WOLVES
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
($ 90 )
Santa Barbara County’s
sun-warmed climate comes
through in this robust, lus-
cious Cabernet; its black-
cherry compote richness is
hard to resist.The Wines
Alecia Moore’s Two Wolves wines, which she poured at
her Thanksgiving celebration, are available directly from
the winery. Visit twowolveswine.com for information. See
pinkspage.com for where to catch P!nk on her next tour.2016 TWO WOLVES
CABERNET FRANC ($ 60 )
Cabernet Franc is more
often used in blends than
bottled alone, but Moore
loves it, and with good
reason—when grown and
vinified with care, its tea-
leaf aromas and fine-boned
structure provide remark-
able elegance.2016 TWO WOLVES PETIT
VERDOT ($ 60 )
Petit Verdot’s electric
purple hue comes through
in this intense red. Think
tart berries and the scent
of violets and you’re on the
right track.“Apple!” says Jameson cheerfully.
“What kind of a man are you?” Moore says.
“A man who doesn’t use superglue. I weld things,” says Hart.To Jameson: “Yeah, bud. That’s right. Apple.”
With the turkey, which is stunning, surrounded by roasted
squash, corn, and sweet potatoes, Moore pours her 2016
Cabernet Franc. “It’s my star,” she says. The wine lives up to
that. Intense and layered, it’s ample proof of Chad Melville’s
comments earlier: Moore isn’t just a celebrity name attached
to a wine brand. Whenever she’s on her property, she’s out in
the vineyards working, and during harvest she’s in the winery
full-time, tasting, punching down the caps on fermenting tanks
of grapes, making blending calls. Alison Thomson, her assistant
winemaker, supplies some technical knowledge from a UC Davis
degree in enology. She’s been here from the start, working side
by side with Moore, and says, “It’s really cool to come up with a
whole new program. What are we going to do? Rosé? Sémillon?
It’s like, let’s just try stuff! Alecia loves to experiment. And the
vineyard is amazing—the Syrah we have planted down there is
some of the best Syrah I’ve ever worked with.” (Side note: Chad
Melville’s Syrahs are some of the best in the state, and since
that’s who Thomson worked with prior to meeting Moore, she
knows whereof she speaks.)
Before dessert, Moore stands up and pings a glass with her
knife. “I want to take a vote!” There are 18 people around the
table, and she wants to know which of her wines they feel is the
food-friendliest. Rosé? The Cab Franc? The Cabernet Sauvignon?
The vote splits evenly, and Moore looks mock-aghast. “Six-
six-six? Great. So basically we’re channeling Ozzy Osbourne.”
Everyone’s drinking and eating, everyone’s having fun, and
feelings of thanks for all this—friends, food, a beautiful day—are
in the air. Moore playfully recalls another Thanksgiving; her
worst ever, she says. “Me and Carey were in our early twen-
ties, living in Sherman Oaks, and his dad shows up at 10 a.m.
with three bottles of Patrón. Downhill from there.” The meal
ended with a food fight involving mashed potatoes and sweet
potatoes. The turkeys themselves were frozen (“I was like 22;
no one told me I had to thaw them”), the dog ran off with a
turkey leg, a cigarette left on an oven mitt set the bedroom on
fire, and eventually Moore ended up trying to slash the tires on
Hart’s F-250 truck with a kitchen knife because she was pissed
off at him, landing in the hospital with 13 stitches in her hand
“because that’s my lucky number.” Finally, at 11 p.m., everyone
ate. “And we’ve been together 17 years now,” she adds sweetly.
Hart shrugs. “My family’s Irish. At our Thanksgivings, by
3 p.m. someone’s crying and someone’s bleeding, and by 5
everyone’s happy again.”
Today, no one’s crying or bleeding, and everyone is very happy
indeed with the final pairing, which is the Two Wolves Petit
Verdot, an intense but brightly tart red, with Moore’s own sweet
potato pie. Does the pairing work? She wants to know. Down
the table, Kerri Kenney-Silver says, “It’s unexpected and weird
and funky and awesome.”
Moore looks happy. “Some things just work,” she says. “Sort
of like a 39-year-old butch female in a tutu flying through the
air singing love songs to children.”
“Forty-two sold-out dates in Australia,” Reina Hidalgo says.
“Hey, cheers to that!” Moore replies, raising her glass.