2015 Three Wine Company Zinfandel Bigelow Vineyard Contra Costa 750 ml

A Wine Access Favorite: Matt Cline’s Ancient-Vine Zinfandel

Hailing from one of California’s true heritage vineyards, this is easily one of the greatest Zinfandels on the coast, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with giants like Paul Draper’s Ridge “Geyserville” and “Lytton Springs.” If you love wine with a velvet-like texture, staggering ancient-vine concentration, and a dark-fruit core loaded with spice, this has your name on it. And it’s an incredible bargain to boot.

Winning 93 points from Wine Enthusiast, the 2015 Three Wine Company Bigelow Vineyard Zinfandel is Matt Cline’s love letter to an endangered and priceless plot of Contra Costa County. An ancient-vines preservationist, Cline helped save the Bigelow Vineyard and its 130-year-old vines from development. As his reward, he reaped this “big, ripe and fruity wine” wine Wine Enthusiast loves for its “firm tannins and full body.”  

It’s thanks to Cline that farmer Marcus James Bigelow’s historic vines are in no danger of succumbing to the bulldozer’s blade. These gnarled, century-old vines were in danger of being torn asunder for Contra Costa’s Bay Area real estate development magnets, like other ancient vineyards in the region which have been uprooted in the name of progress, often erasing a century’s worth of viticulture. “But not this one,” Cline told us. “No developer is going to uproot a hundred years of history on my watch.”

If you stop by Bigelow Vineyard, sitting off Neroly Road, southeast of Antioch, you’ll understand his passion: thick-trunks of bush-trained vines planted on Contra Costa County’s loamy Delhi sands. The vineyard looks like an alien landscape compared to the neatly manicured rows of Napa or Bordeaux, and Bigelow’s unique appearance alludes to its equally intriguing wines. Resembling beach sand, the soil stresses the vines, driving high concentration but reducing their overall production. The result is darkly colored, densely flavored wines (like this one) that are nearly impossible to resist upon release, but gorgeous after a few years in the cellar.

In 2015—the 130th anniversary of the vineyard—Cline navigated a fast, intense vintage, one of the earliest on record and the fourth straight year of drought, making for exceptional quality in the grapes. This is a profoundly pleasurable red blend of 86% rich Zinfandel with a smattering of Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, Carignane, and Mataro—all from vines that offer a window into distant California history, hand-planted in days long before Prohibition.