Wavy Wines began as a birthday epiphany. While tasting natural wines around the world, Eliot Kessel and Jude Zasadzki decided Los Angeles needed its own version: easy, low-stakes bottles made for warm afternoons rather than cellars.
Backstory
Kessel and Zasadzki founded Wavy Wines in 2019. They built the project in Los Angeles, basing themselves in the Silver Lake neighborhood, and aimed squarely at the casual end of the natural wine spectrum from day one.
The Region
Wavy is a Los Angeles urban label that sources fruit from across California. Their grapes come from named vineyards including an organic Pinot Gris site in Chico and Chardonnay from Scribe Estate Vineyard in Sonoma, with sourcing that shifts year to year.
Vineyards & Farming
The team does not farm an estate but selects organically grown and like-minded fruit from California growers. Sustainability runs through the model: leftover grape solids are reused rather than discarded, and the specific vineyards change with each vintage's sourcing.
Winemaking
The house approach is hands-off and additive-light. Their LS Gris, a skin-contact orange wine of roughly 80 percent Pinot Gris and 20 percent Chardonnay, ferments about 13 days in stainless steel, then ages in neutral oak and stainless before bottling unfined, unfiltered, and with no added sulfur. The California Wine Cooler is a piquette made by refermenting the pressed grape solids from the primary wines, yielding a lower-alcohol, spritzy drink.
The Wines
The lineup is built for porch-sipping: the Wine Cooler piquette in white and rose, the Sunshine orange wine, the Super Californian red blend, and the LS Gris. Everything is meant to be opened young, chilled, and shared without ceremony.
