Masters of zin: Trinitas and Preston of Dry Creek
For several years running, back in the late '90s, I orchestrated what I liked to call my zin-a-thon, a weeklong series of tastings of several hundred zinfandels.
These were all current releases — an indication of just how many zin bottlings are available. And the point of the exercise was to discover which regions, and producers, were consistently superior. Year in and year out, my favorites came from two places, one surprising, one not. Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley, traditionally a hotbed of zinfandel from the early-20th-century days of the Italian immigrant farmers, has a style that might be called claretlike. Which is to say, its zins show crisp, bright berry flavors, and new oak seems to elegantly wrap them in a light dusting of cocoa.
No surprise there. I've been a fan of zin-meisters such as Dave Rafanelli and Doug Nalle for years, and there are legions of others stacked up and down the valley. But many of my other favorites were from an area best known, if at all, for supplying the corporate giants with juice for their jug wines.
Contra Costa, an old grape-growing district east of the Oakland hills, has become a treasure chest for those in search of old vines. Two wineries in particular, Rosenblum Cellars and Cline Cellars, have been instrumental in promoting the area's zinfandels.
In its heyday, Cline's "Big Break Vineyard" and "Live Oak Vineyard" zins from Contra Costa county pinned my personal wow-meter. I find notes such as these for their 1998 efforts:
Big Break: A blast of spice, mint, bramble and pepper explodes from the glass. The wine is dense, dark, deep and mysterious; the flavors pungent, penetrating and persistent. Live Oak: a lovely sweetness to the fruit, which tastes like ripe, just-picked blackberries. Old vines, 100-plus years, deliver sweet, supple and sexy flavors.
Matt Cline, who made those classic Cline vintages, parted ways with his brother three years ago and started his own brand called Trinitas Cellars. Happily, he has maintained his focus on old-vine California zinfandel and other heritage varietals such as petite sirah, mataro, carignane and alicante bouschet.
Trinitas takes its name from the three essentials, as Cline defines them, for making great wine. "The right dirt, the right micro-climate and the human influence — not screwing it up — that is the power of trinity," he explains.
Cline, a softspoken man who clearly would rather be out walking the vineyards than on the road plugging his wines, does his best to put a positive spin on the breakup with his brother, which had been brewing for some time but was formalized after the 2001 crush. "There were artistic differences, personality differences," he says. The Trinitas wines say what needs to be said. In them you find the same breathtaking range, firm grip and potent, juicy power that characterized the old Clines. The vineyard sources have changed, but the defining vision has not. The 2002 Trinitas "Bigalow Vineyard" Zinfandel, for example, is sourced from a nine-acre block of 120-year-old Contra Costa vines.
As is generally the case in vineyards of that age, there is a somewhat amorphous "field blend" in the vineyard, which Cline believes includes a good bit of mataro (also known as mourvèdre) and small amounts of a few other grapes. The fruit had been going into Sebastiani jug wines for decades, but as soon as Cline tasted it he knew it deserved its own, single vineyard bottling.
Currently, Trinitas has six wines in distribution, including a super-ripe, Russian River pinot blanc and a pair of distinctive, stylish petite sirahs. Having quickly ramped up to an ambitious 8,000-case production, Cline is still a bit jittery about the sales side of his business but claims to have no regrets about all the changes on the winery side, which he believes have brought him full circle, back to his old-vine roots.
Meanwhile, over in Dry Creek Valley, vintner Lou Preston is celebrating his 30th year of farming. Elsewhere, Preston's wines have generated their own mini-cult following, and deservedly so, but the brand has been largely ignored here in the Seattle market, perhaps because Preston, like Cline, is not given to doing the requisite road-warrior marketing blitzes.
For the record, this Preston winery is different from the Washington state Preston winery, and has redesigned the labels to clearly read Preston of Dry Creek. Along with such icons as Rafanelli and Ridge, Preston has the grapes, the focus and the talent to produce superior zinfandels.
These are supplemented with other Rhone-style reds such as a thoroughly marvelous Dry Creek valley cinsault; a dense, meaty, single-vineyard syrah; and the L.P. Red, a delicious blend of four different Rhone grapes. All of these wines display gorgeous fruit character and extremely modest alcohol levels.
Paul Gregutt is the author of "Northwest Wines." His column appears weekly in the Wine section. He can be reached by e-mail at wine@seattletimes.com.
 |
