2012 Three Wine Company Old Vines Zinfandel Contra Costa County 750 ml

Ancient-Vine Handshakes on Bleached Delhi Sand

In the 1980s, an aphid-like pest that had ravaged Europe at the beginning of the 20th century invaded Northern California. By 1990, nearly all of Napa Valley had been uprooted and replanted, decimated by Phylloxera.

But as Old World winegrowers learned a century ago, vines planted in fine, sandy soils proved resistant to the pest. The most extraordinary ancient-vine parcels in Europe survived and continue to eke out tiny yields of small-berry clusters on the Mediterranean coast, making their way into triple-digit bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Priorat, and Bandol.

In 1985, as Phylloxera spread like wildfire up north, a young graduate of the enology program at Cal Davis returned to his grandfather’s ranch outside of Oakley on San Francisco’s East Bay. He spent his days inspecting vineyards planted in the late 1800s by Italian and Portuguese immigrant families, all set as close as possible to the cool breezes off the Sacramento River.

Then that summer, he made handshake agreements with a half-dozen grape growers, locking up some of the oldest and most historically significant Zinfandel contracts in Contra Costa County one by one.

Each December for the last four years, Matt Cline has earmarked 1,800 bottles of his Three Zinfandel “Old Vines” for WineAccess. The first vintage was 2008 — a cool growing season, punctuated by a couple of blistering summer heat spikes. For those of you still holding that deep, dark, Port-like Zin of 2008, it remains plump, primary, and perfectly youthful, showing no sign whatsoever of its four years of bottle age.

The 2009 is one of our favorites. Rich, broadly defined, and fabulously spicy, we’ve gone through half a case over the last couple years, but are laying down the rest until 2020.

Both the 2010 and 2011 are marvelous, though far different from the ’08 and ’09. These were two of the coldest vintages in recent Contra Costa history, making for wonderfully high-toned Zinfandels, infused with exotic, low-pH aromatics, braced with sturdy, dusty-tannin backbone.

But, when we asked Matt to describe the fabulous 2012 Zinfandel “Old Vines,” the winemaker whose fortuitous 1985 handshakes gave birth to the #1 under-$18 red in WineAccess history just smiled. “Just one word,” Matt said. “JUICY!”

The 100+ year-old-vine 2012 Three Zinfandel “Old Vines” is deepest purple on color. Explosive on the nose, featuring a plush, voluminous mix of crushed red and black fruits, violets, graphite, and sweet spice, tinged with cedar. Rich, broadly structured, and voluptuous on the attack — terrifically JUICY — finishing with marvelous old-vine refinement and persistence. Drink now — if you must — or do as we always do and lay this magnificent ancient-vine Zin down until the early 2020s.

$23 on release. Is there a more luscious and complex California red wine on today’s market for just $15.99? If you think so, give us a shout. We’re coming over.