DEW South Wine was founded by Billy Dewey and his wife Hayley with their first vintage produced in 2022. Billy is originally from Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from Mississippi State University he became a computer programmer working in a corporate credit card processing office; he didn’t know about wine at that point in his career and readily admits that Mississippi isn’t a state where you learn about fine wine. From a college student’s perspective, beverage was all about beer and bourbon. After working this cubicle job he took a break and spent three months backpacking through New Zealand in 2016. This trip was pivotal for him in terms of changing his career trajectory; he was introduced to New Zealand wines. Upon returning to Mississippi he realized he had no desire to return to working in a cubicle and decided he wanted to pursue a career that involved being outdoors.
So he moved to Estes Park, Colorado and led backpacking outings for a youth camp. During this time he began dating a woman who was moving to Napa Valley to work a harvest internship at REALM. She taught him the basics of wine tasting; he recalls she prepared 6 wines for their first blind tasting. He thought they were going to drink them all but she quickly corrected him, this was a tasting not a drinking.
During one trip to see her, they visited Hartwell Winery, a property now owned by REALM. She encouraged him to work a harvest. While staying with her, a neighbor walked out with a bottle of Mad Fritz beer in hand and asked Billy if he just moved in. Billy informed him he was visiting his girlfriend; they hung out talking in his backyard. When the neighbor heard of Billy’s interest in working a harvest, he called a winemaker friend and asked him if he had any space to hire an intern for the upcoming harvest. He did.
Billy was told to drive up to David Arthur Winery to meet with their winemaker. That was Nile Zacherle, who is also the brew master for Mad Fritz. Billy remembers Nile pouring a glass of wine, passing it across the table and instructing him to walk him through the aromatic and palate profile and provide as much info as he could about the character of the wine. Billy took the glass, swirled and smelled it, and then looked up and said something like, “To tell you the truth, I don’t know much about wine, but I will show up on time, am willing to learn and I will be a responsible employee”. Nile then replied, “I like it when people admit they don’t know much about wine instead of trying to fake it, but I hope you will have a very different answer after this harvest. He didn’t care that Billy didn’t have much experience in wine, but he did value his interest in learning about wine.
Because harvest is such a condensed time of year, it is also a great opportunity to learn at an accelerated pace. Billy quickly embraced the basics, estimating crop loads, doing chemical analysis on the grapes, helping manage fermentation, making nutrient ads and learning how to setup and take down the equipment each day. And then Nile gave him more responsibility, helping oversee their rosé program. And after harvest, Billy did have a different answer about the glass of wine, a more knowledgeable reply based on the perspective he gained from his hands on winemaking the past few months.
Billy returned to Colorado to become a children’s ski instructor for the winter, but in the back of his mind he made a promise he would return to Napa Valley for the next year’s harvest. Meanwhile, Nile had passed his resume on to Tom Garret, owner of Dakota Shy Winery. This was in 2017; Dakota Shy had just opened. Tom called Billy and said he needed one more person to fill his cellar team that year. Billy started working at Dakota Shy August 1st that year as a cellar intern. He eventually became a full time cellar worker, then cellar master and has since transitioned into a sales and hospitality role for Dakota Shy.
Meanwhile he began making wine in his garage, working with some friends in the industry. He lived on Yajome Street in downtown Napa at the time, so he called his little project Chateau Yajome. He and his colleagues worked out a deal with a vineyard owner in Clarksburg; in exchange for Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc, they would gift him a case of Napa Valley wines plus additional wines that they made from his grapes. Their winemaking was old school including using an old Italian crank press and for cooler fermentations, a plastic kiddie pool filled with ice (no double wall glycol jacked stainless steels tanks here), but the wines came out clean and well made.
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Hayley was born in Palmdale, CA and moved to Oakdale, CA as a child, an agricultural part of the state in the Central Valley known for its sizeable rodeo each year, and depending on one’s route, a town one drives through when going to Yosemite. She was heavily involved in 4H as a child and initially wanted to be a equine veterinarian. But then she realized she doesn’t do well with the sight of blood or needles. So prior to applying to colleges, she made a list of her primary interests; these included travel, be outdoors, history, science and math. She was accepted at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and majored in wine business. During her time in college she interned for several wineries including in California and Germany. The highlight was an internship in the Rhine region of Germany, learning about wine and experiencing a total immersion into their wine culture.
She also worked at the Turley tasting room in Paso Robles; her last internship was for Trinchero, for their Heritage Collection (fine wine portfolio). Ultimately she worked for Trinchero for 6 years. In between jobs she she assisted with the launch of DEW South on branding, licensing and compliance. Today she works at Vinattieri 1385, doing marketing for the Antinori family’s luxury imports into the U.S.
Both Billy and Hayley moved to Napa Valley in 2017.
Kasten Vineyard
When searching for grapes to start their brand, they began looking on winebusiness.com. They spotted an advertisement placed by growers John and Cindy Kasten offering barrels of wine for sale made with grapes grown at their vineyard in the Oak Knoll District. So Billy reached out to them; it turns out both couples already shared mutual connections in the industry. John was the architect for Steve and Linda Moulds home at Moulds Vineyard, also in the Oak Knoll District, and a vineyard that Billy was already very familiar with from his time at Dakota Shy. Both Hayley and John had graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. And Billy and Hayley appreciated the wines from Kasten Vineyard; they were more old world in style, harvested on the less ripe side of the spectrum, were red fruited and bright expressions of the variety representative of the cooler climate in Oak Knoll.
Their first vines at Kasten Vineyard were planted in 2003, with a 50/50 planting of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot along with a few rows of Cabernet Franc. The Kasten’s were going to harvest all three varieties at the same time, ferment them together and create a red field blend. But in reality, all three varieties ended up ripening at different times not to mention the challenges of needing a minimum tonnage required by their custom crush location at the time. Eventually they decided to replant the Merlot and Cabernet Franc to an earlier ripening clone of Cabernet Sauvignon; today the vineyard is 100% planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and the vines are managed by Doug Hill of Oak Knoll Farming. The Kasten property is three acres of which 1.5 are planted to vines.
The soils here are fluvial, sandy with clay loam and the vines are primarily dry farmed growing on a low vigor rootstock. Two clones of Cabernet Sauvignon are planted in equal proportions; these include FPS 30, commonly planted in the Stags Leap District and the small-berry producing clone 337. Both clones grow on 1616C rootstock; deep-rooted this rootstock is resistant to phylloxera and a variety of nematodes, doesn’t need a lot of water and it thrives in sandy soils.
The name DEW South is a catchy play on both their last name but is also an homage to Billy’s southern roots. And this brand is the result of the collective and formative experiences both have shared during their individual wine journeys. The name reminds them of life’s direction which brought them to Napa Valley and all the people they have met who have supported them along the way.
In terms of his winemaking, Billy strives to showcase varietal character, terroir and purity of fruits and place. He’s never going to over power these wines with oak.
Select Wines
The 2023 DEW South Cabernet Sauvignon; this wine is deep ruby and opaque with an amaranthine rim. The influence of the barrel fleshes out the aromatics as compared to the 2022 bottling which was aged entirely in neutral oak. The fruit really pops. The bouquet is immediately compelling, with both purple florals and lots of layering in terms of its core fruit characteristics. Smells balanced and bright with scents of dark plum, blackberry, boysenberry, Himalayan purple mulberry, blueberry, lavender, lilacs and African violets. And a lighter influence of darker baking spices. Bright, fresh, balanced and inspiring – these are all adjectives worthy of this bottle, and words we enjoy writing when we discover a wine of this pedigree and not another over ripe Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The finish lingers with gravelly textured fully coating tannins, seamlessly integrated into the finish, persisting in tandem with the fruit. This texture is representative of the site, even in youthful wines. This wine was aged in 45% new French oak barrels; these were brand new long grain Sylvan reserve; their influence is mild, complementing the fruit. Like their 2022 wine, they hand bottled this vintage, in total, 25 cases.
The 2022 DEW South Cabernet Sauvignon is 100% varietal. This wine was aged in 2-3 year old fill barrels; prior to bottling, this wine was transferred to stainless steel drums for several weeks. Its winemaking highlights the purity of the vineyard and grapes. This wine is deep ruby and opaque; dark fruited with plenty of layering, its scents including blackberry, boysenberry, dark plum and dark mulberry, with additional layers of dried herbs. These include dried sage, bay leaf, lavender and menthol. Very bright, juicy. The acidity is vivacious and energetic, with a red fruited and tart finishing profile. Its flavors include red cherry, boysenberry, red plums, currant and cranberry. The tannins are soft and seamlessly integrated into the brightly lit finish, lingering with a light dusty character. Fresh as can be, this is a pure and leaner expression of both variety and site.
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Their single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon was made from the Kasten vineyard through the 2024 harvest. Starting with the 2025 harvest they transitioned their grape source to Block 6 within Cross Creek vineyard owned by the Handley family. This vineyard is located in a part of Napa Valley that few visitors ever see; it is within tiny Pratt Valley sandwiched between Howell Mountain and Glass Mountain just off of Crystal Springs Road. Glass Mountain is appropriately named for its concentration of obsidian rock – it was used extensively by Native Americans for trade and for making arrowheads. And this black rock is commonly found in Cross Creek Vineyard.
This site was originally planted in the 1870s to fruit and nut trees including walnuts and prunes. When the family acquired the property in the 1960s, the decision was made to transition to wine grapes.
This part of the valley feels like ‘old Napa’, a slower pace of life where things don’t seem to change very quickly. While not far from the main valley floor, it feels worlds away. It is quiet here, neighbors commonly walk on the little traveled Crystal Springs Road, they wave to you with a friendly smile – and the few homes in the area are tucked against the edges of where the hills meet the valley floor.
Cross Creek Vineyard
The wines have all been sold direct to date with no distribution. Some of their most loyal customers are located in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The wines are sold exclusively through email releases. For more information, please visit: www.dewsouthwine.com
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