2013 Three Wine Company Zinfandel Evangelho Contra Costa County

A Hungarian Rhapsody at Evangelho Vineyard

When the work week was over, fathers and sons piled into buggies, heading north from the Port of San Francisco. It was early February. As the immigrants waited for the early morning ferry, they huddled around a fire, telling stories of the old country in a mix of Italian and Portuguese dialects. The boat ride was less than an hour. Once on the other side of the bay, they climbed onto another open carriage, awoke the horses with a light tug of the reins, and headed almost 50 miles due north to Buena Vista Winery.

In 1856, Hungarian entrepreneur Agoston Haraszthy purchased a small vineyard a few miles east of Sonoma. But, as with everything else in his colorful life, the Hungarian was simply incapable of thinking small. Just one year later, Haraszthy began boring tunnels into the sides of a nearby mountain. Then he built stone cellars at the entrance, and began purchasing Sonoma hillside spreads a ranch at a time. In less than a decade, his original property had grown to 5,000 acres.

Most importantly for the future of California viticulture, those early Buena Vista plantings featured a myriad of European varieties, some of which were familiar to the farmers making the trek from San Francisco to Sonoma. There was Mataro from Spain, or what the French call Mourvèdre. There were dark, thick-skin varieties like Carignan, Malvasia Nera, and Alicante Bouschet.

But to the Italian grape growers who made that 50-mile trek in February 1885, the most exciting discovery was a more mysterious variety. Some recognized it as Primitivo, the robust, spicy red found in Italy’s “heel,” in the province of Puglia. With nostalgic zeal, they gathered up every piece of 6-inch budwood they could stuff into the back of their carriages and headed southeast, toward the white sand of Oakley. Once they arrived, thinking mostly of bay breezes that would take the sting out of the blistering summer sun, they dug saplings into the dunes perched closest to the water, where the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers meet.

In 1982, a young winemaker named Matt Cline, fresh out of UC Berkeley and Cal Davis, discovered the ancient Evangelho Vineyard. Just a few years before the likes of Joel Peterson at Ravenswood, Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon, and Paul Draper at Ridge Vineyards would also become enchanted by the old vines of Contra Costa, Cline inked a grape contract on the spot — knowing full well that he’d just laid claim to one of the most extraordinary Zinfandel vineyards on the coast.

In retrospect, Matt told us, the immigrants never realized how fortunate they had been to choose parcels closest to the water. “Contra Costa summers can be blistering hot. They planted where it was coolest, to best cope with the heat. As it turned out, the spots that were most comfortable for vineyard workers were perfect for Zinfandel.”

Cline has always maintained that it’s in the coolest and driest growing seasons that Evangelho’s oldest vines really flourish. In 2013, the second consecutive drought year in Northern California, temperatures still remained mild. The call to harvest came August 21st, making for what Cline (adamantly) insists is the “best ever” off Evangelho.

Drawn entirely from vines planted from 1885-1910. Opaque purple/black to the rim with intoxicating aromas of blackberry, mountain blueberry, violets, and sweet spice. ULTRA-concentrated on the attack, featuring a mix of crushed-black-fruit preserves, licorice, and sweet crème de cassis. Luscious out of the gate, but don’t be fooled: With 15.4% alcohol and a pH of just 3.54, this monumental ancient-vine Zin will age gracefully well into the mid-2020s.

$36 on release. Just $19.99 today for one of WineAccess’ top under-$20 reds. Shipping included on 4.

• ABV 15.40%
• Enjoy right away
• % Zinfandel