2013 Three Wine Company CMZ 750 ml

Matt Cline’s Run at ‘The Prisoner’

Since 1982, when he discovered the old vines of Contra Costa — planted by Portuguese and Italian immigrants before the turn of the 20th century — Matt Cline has crafted some of the most intensely concentrated if classically structured single-vineyard reds in the New World.

In 1998, a young winemaker named Dave Phinney followed Cline’s lead, launching a new brand called “The Prisoner,” drawn from the same Contra Costa vineyards. “The Prisoner” — a deeper, darker, more Port-like blend — burst out of the gate like a racehorse and never looked back.

To say the least, Matt Cline was hardly blind to Phinney’s success.

In the summer of 2013, Cline caught a break. He received a call from an old friend telling him that the Suscol Creek Vineyard — a meticulously farmed Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon site at the base of the Vaca Mountains — was carrying more fruit than the owners had contracted to sell. Most intriguing to Cline, there were a few tons available from Block 5, the rockiest block on the property. It took Matt Cline just 10 minutes to drive from his home in Napa to Suscol Creek. With just one blend in mind, he contracted for 5 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon on the spot.

Barely a drop of rain fell on the North Coast between February and August 2013, even as daytime highs remained mild. Recognizing the potential for extreme ripeness, Cline left untouched the Suscol Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, the 100-year-old Mourvèdre Spinelli Vineyard, and the 125-year-old Evangelho Vineyard Zinfandel, pushing the envelope like never before on natural sugar — determined, as Matt told us, “to take a run at ‘The Prisoner!’ ”

In January, we sent a very small group of previous Three Wine Company buyers a pre-release offer on the 2013 “CMZ” — a big, bold, “Prisoner”-like blend of late-picked Cabernet Sauvignon, ancient-vine Zinfandel, and Mataro. Then we sat back and watched the WineAccess scoreboard light up. By the time the dust settled, the 2013 “CMZ” garnered a score of 4.42 stars out 5 — one of the highest ratings of the last year, nearly equaling the performance of the 2012 Phelps “Insignia” and the 2012 ACV Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve.

Matt Cline’s 2013 “CMZ” is opaque purple to the rim. 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. Drink now-2022.

$44 on release. Just $30 this morning. 600 bottles are up for grabs. NO dawdling.