2012 Three Wine Company CMZ 750 ml

The Prisoner and Matt Cline’s “CMZ”

Since 1982, when he discovered the old vines of Contra Costa planted at the turn of the 20th century by Portuguese and Italian immigrants, Matt Cline has crafted luscious single-vineyard reds in the classical spirit of Paul Draper at Ridge Vineyards.

Sixteen years later, a brilliant newcomer named Dave Phinney burst upon the California wine scene. Phinney, recognizing the historical significance of the ancient vineyards outside Oakley, followed Cline’s lead and began purchasing fruit from some of Matt’s favorite sites.

While Cline practiced Draper-like restraint in the vines and cellar, Phinney took a different approach — opting to harvest later and picking clusters at extreme ripeness. Phinney’s reds were opaque purple in color, dense and chewy in texture, infused with almost Port-like concentration. In 2000, Dave Phinney released the first bottling of “The Prisoner,” a wine that would soon take the country by storm, blowing away consumers with its black-fruit boldness and bombast.

Cline was hardly blind to the success of “The Prisoner,” and privately, among friends, took his hat off to Phinney’s entrepreneurial zeal. But as a winemaker, Matt remained a steadfast classicist, turning out far more tame, reined-in Zinfandel, Mourvèdre, and Carignan from the 100-year-old vines outside of Oakley.

In the summer of 2012, Cline caught a break. He received a call from an old friend telling him that the Suscol Creek Vineyard — a superb Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon site at the base of the Vaca Mountains — was carrying more fruit than ever before. There were a few tons available from Block 5, one of the rockiest hillside plantings on the property. It only took 10 minutes to drive from Cline’s home to the property. He contracted for 4 tons of Cabernet on the spot.

The 2012 growing season turned out to be a thing of beauty. While temperatures were mild, barely a drop of rain fell between June and August, from Contra Costa to Oakville. Recognizing the potential for extreme ripeness, Cline mostly did as he’s always done and made the call to harvest early, to keep finished alcohol and acidity in check. But in the case of a few tons drawn off Suscol Creek Vineyard (Cabernet Sauvignon) in Napa and Spinelli (Mataro) and Evangelho (Zinfandel) in Contra Costa, Matt let the grapes hang, determined to craft an experimental 6-barrel blend of “CMZ” that would take an ultra-ripe page out a “Prisoner” script.

A word of advice: If you've fallen in love with the Three Wine Company Zinfandels and Rhône blends over the years, this brand-new release is an anomaly. Those who most appreciate the restraint of Cline’s tightly wound 2011s may choose to steer clear of the 2012 “CMZ.” You may find the “CMZ” to be TOO MUCH — and, well, too “Prisoner”-like.

But if your palate is decidedly New World, if you’ve fallen in love with the extravagance of Napa’s 2012s, and can imagine how an ultra-ripe 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon could benefit from a healthy dose of late-harvested, 100-year-old-vine Contra Costa Zinfandel and Mataro … the 2012 “CMZ” will BLOW YOU AWAY!

(Harvested at 26.8 Brix. Finished alcohol is 15.7%. pH is 3.67. Opaque purple.) Explosive aromatically, featuring a voluptuous gumbo of ultra-concentrated blackberry, black raspberry, and black cherry, the primary-fruit opulence all but overpowering the sweet spice, lavender, and violets. Deep, dark, and plush on the attack, dense and chewy in texture, packed with crushed-black-fruit preserves, doused with kirsch and framboise liqueur, finishing round and supple, with surprisingly sturdy tannins lurking backstage. This is the most powerful wine in 30 years from Matt Cline — the winemaker’s experimental ode to “The Prisoner.”

$44 on release. Just $30 today. The last 20 cases of our allotment are now up grabs.