A Trinity of Trinitas: Trinitas 2002 Bigalow Zin

My mother, her girlfriend and another friend all showed up last night for dinner. We BBQ-d a couple of tri-tips and needed some wine to accompany. Since my mother and her friends all live in Concord, I figured that a selection of Contra Costa wines would be in order; so over the course of the evening we opened 3 different bottles from Trinitas.

Trinitas is Matt Cline's Hobby vineyard. Matt is the wine maker for the large vintner Cline (which owns a lot of vineyards in Oakley). He married a scion of the Jaccuzi family; Erin. The Trinitas label is a partnership between Matt and Erin and Busch and Rodeno families of Oakley. Their goal is to show off the terrior of heritage vineyards in Contra Costa County.

I first became interested in this particular wine when I started to drive past the vineyard on my way to our ski cabin in Kirkwood. You will see it on your right hand side as you are about to cross the Antioch bridge across the Sacramento river on your way out of the Bay Area. It contains what may likely be the oldest Zinfandel vines in existence. When most of CA was ripping out wine grapes during the "Great Experiment" of prohibition; the vines of Oakley remained in the ground. The Bigelow vineyard contains mostly 120 year old zinfandel vines. Not even Dalmatia can claim an entire vineyard of this grape that old.

This is one of my all time favorite Zins. 2002 was a great year, and this vineyard produces the richest fruit one could imagine. Kudos to Matt and Erin for preserving this vineyard from the city of Oakley's machinations to turn it into a Wal-mart.

The presentation was ok. It came in a Bordeaux bottle rather than a Zinfandel one. It had a real cork. There was a fair amount of sediment around the neck; enough to leave a faint tattoo on the web of my thumb indicating that this wine was stored up-side down (This is good).

The labeling was good - all the necessary information is present (Vintage, Vintner, Terrior, Varietal, and Booze content) and in the right places. The rear label gives tasting notes and history of the region as well as the goal of the vintner; but does not hint at fermentation techniques oak? brix? punch down? etc.)

There were some good legs, the nose was prominent of loganberries. With a brilliant colour, this is a wine full of fruit. The term "Jammy" in this case refers to a spread that you would put on toast. If only there as a jam that tasted like this, PB&J would never be the same (skip the PB!) You can really taste the old vines in this wine. Imagine if you bought a single Jelly Belly jelly bean that somehow ended up with all the flavour of the whole bag - and that's the type of grape that this wine is made of.

The Verdict:

The only Zin that comes close to this one is Trinitas's 2003 CCC Old Vine Zinfandel. Buy it at any price. I would pay upwards of $50-$75 for a bottle of this, so at the $25 I paid for it it's a steal (but don't tell Matt or Erin I said so)

Style:	Zinfandel
Varietals:	Zinfandel
Appellation/Terrior:	Oakley (Contra Costa County), California
Vintage:	2002
Vintner:	Trinitas
Alcohol:	15.0% by Volume
Price:	$24.36

2002 Dingač

So, as my wife was ordering coffee, I was left wandering the Alameda marketplace with my 1½ year old daughter on my hip, and decided to pop into Farmstead Cheeses & Wines and browse.
I noticed an unfamiliar label amongst their Zins - it appeared to be a Croatian wine. It was in a traditional Zin shaped bottle; so I quickly got excited thinking it may be something special. A few words with the proprietor confirmed my suspicion. I could hardly wait to get it home and try it.

Having been a self confessed Zin fan; I am always on the lookout for a good Zin; the older the vine the better. And what better place to find old vines than the ancestral homeland of the vines smuggled into New York by Gibbs in 1832.

For those unfamiliar with the origins of Zinfandel; in 1832, Herr Gibbs absconded with some vines belonging to the Hapsburgs and kept in their royal collection in Vienna. Herr Gibbs relocated to Long Island where one of those vines ended up being called Zinfandel. (Oddly enough; no Zinfandel is commercially grown on Long Island today). Up until UC Davis researchers stepped in, no one knew where the Hapsburgs got the vines from originally. It turns out that a little known Dalmatian grape called Crljenak Kaštelanski was the source of the clones.

This bottle is labeled "Premium red wine" from Pelješac Peninsula. Given the lack of appellation laws in Croatia, and knowing a bit about how vineyards are managed there; this wine is probably a field blend of Crljenak Kaštelanski (non-cloned Zinfandel), and Zin ancestors Plavac Mali and Dobričić. Un-oaked.

The wine was very un-zin-like. Perhaps given the nature of the field blend and likelihood of non-clones in the vineyard this should not have been surprising; never the less I was disappointed. Too much black pepper. More reminiscent of a mid range Cab than a California Zin. That said, it had a great colour, and was as leggy as all get out. Weak nose.
The presentation was good. I appreciate the traditional bottle. It's getting rare to see Zins packaged in proper Zinfandel bottles (Green, strong shoulder, narrower at the base than the shoulder) it seems that the generic Bordeaux bottle has gained favour. The cork was also real.
As far as the label goes; I like the donkey, but dislike the typical European lack of varietals on the label. For a region lacking formal appellation laws, the omission of a varietal listing is most disturbing.

The Verdict:

While I was disappointed because I was expecting something different; I shouldn't have been. It was a wine worth the price (but not much more).

Style:	Zinfandel
Varietals:	Crljenak Kaštelanski, Plavac Mali, Dobričić and others
Appellation/Terrior:	Pelješac Peninsula, Dalmatia
Vintage:	2002
Vintner:	Dingač
Alcohol:	13.5% by Volume
Price:	$24.27