Gnarly Head are owned by the famous Delicato Family in California and are a brand devoted to creating big, brash, fruit bomb wines from old vines in Lodi and across California.
The Delicato Family themselves are one of the most important wine producers in the US - up there with the Jackson Family and E&J Gallo as Family owned wine dynasties whose aim is to showcase everything California has to offer…from entry level commercial wines to iconic bottlings from the great vineyards of Napa and Sonoma.
With Gnarly Head, set up in 2004, the aim was to take advantage of some of the very old, ‘gnarly’ old Zinfandel vineyards in Lodi that had sprung to the attention of winemakers and which were producing some seriously good wine. When the Gnarly winemakers got down there they realised the amount of seriously ripe and bold fruit was off the charts, and so they decided to try and make the biggest, boldest Zinfandel ever.
Since this inaugural wine, the brand has expanded into other grape varieties, sourced from across Northern California. Their goal is always the same - to create big, juicy wines that don’t hold back - a style they’ve had great success with, so much so that their Zinfandel was awarded a Wine Enthusiast ‘Best Buy’ award for 8 vintages in a row!