2012 Three Wine Company Mataro Spinelli Vineyard

Homage to Spinelli Vineyard: A Note from the Founder

A Note from the WineAccess Founder: Since 1992, I’ve tasted over 500 old-vine reds from winemaker Matt Cline. The wine that’s always most fascinated me is Matt’s ancient-vine Mourvèdre, the variety that’s responsible for my favorite wine of the southern Rhône, Beaucastel’s “Hommage à Jacques Perrin.” On most days, I prefer not to get too involved with the “voice” of WineAccess. But today, I’m making an exception. The 2012 Mataro — what Cline calls “a tribute to Spinelli Vineyard” — is, in my opinion, one of the most complex releases of Cline’s career. California needs more wines like this one, and more winemakers like Cline. (JMW, 1/1/16)

It’s the secret ingredient in Xavier Vignon’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape “Anonyme” and the essence of Beaucastel’s “Hommage à Jacques Perrin,” Parker’s 100-point elixir. When Mourvèdre vines — what the Spanish call “Mataro” — are long in the tooth, and the soil is fine and sandy, no variety combines such a combination of dark-red-fruit voluptuousness and chameleon-like complexity.

Back in the mid-’80s, when Matt Cline, fresh out of Cal Davis’s enology school, discovered a 5-acre Mourvèdre parcel improbably planted on Delhi Sandy Loam east of the San Francisco Bay, he was intrigued. On a whim, he locked into a few tons of small-berry fruit drawn from gnarly vines that spider close to the ground to protect themselves from the bay breeze. At harvest, there were just a few clusters per plant, barely a ton and a half per acre. We remember that first Mourvèdre wine from Spinelli Vineyard. It wasn’t just good; it was spectacular.

In the years to come, Matt would fashion some of the greatest Zinfandels on the coast, single-vineyard bottlings from old-vine Contra Costa sites called “Bridgehead,” “Big Break,” and “Live Oak.” But few knew that Cline, just like Beaucastel and Vignon, was sprinkling his secret old-vine Mataro all over those high-end Zins, providing silken texture, high-toned red fruit intensity and ethereal aromatic delicacy.

Twenty years later, when Matt and his wife, Erin, launched their own boutique brand called “Three,” Cline decided it was time to pay a special tribute to Spinelli. In the 2012 growing season that may never be forgotten on the North Coast, Cline crafted a few hundred cases of pure Mataro off that 5-acre patch, making for a rare old-vine American red that combines New World bombast with Beaucastel complexity.

The brand-new release of Three Mataro Spinelli Vineyard is drawn from a planting that recently celebrated its 128th birthday. Saturated purple in hue. Flashy, sleek, and polished aromatically, featuring a fleshy mix of black raspberry, licorice, sweet spice, and violets. Massively concentrated, packed with black- and red-fruit preserves, finishing with superb refinement and complexity. While finished alcohol tops out at 15.2% in 2012, the pH — due to those Delhi sand soils — is a high-toned 3.62!

Total production of 500 cases, with the last 30 cases of the WineAccess allocation now up for grabs. $35 on release. $20 today for one of the more fascinating wines ever crafted by the brilliant Mr. Cline.

• ABV 15.20%
• Enjoy right away
• % Mataro