2015 Three Wine Company Established 1885 Red Wine Contra Costa County 750 ml

Matt Cline has called the rich and sumptuous Established 1885 his “dream wine.” Ask him about this perfectly balanced blend of Zinfandel, Carignane, and Mataro, and you’ll hear his genuine passion while he relays the uniqueness that makes this wine a dream fulfilled.

Cline, whose wines have inspired thousands of near-perfect Wine Access member-reviews, described the Established 1885 to us like this: “In the beginning, you get red and black fruit from the Zin, which develops into black cherry and silky tannins from the Carignane. The Mataro is the glue that keeps it all together with earthiness and spice.” 

In crafting these grapes into a fine-tuned, deeply contemplative wonder, Matt tapped two of his go-to sites: Evangelho, whose old-vine Zinfandels has attracted wineries like Bedrock and Ridge, and Bigelow, an acclaimed source for Mataro.

Evangelho and Bigelow’s vines grow in Delhi sandy soils that look almost like pure beach sand. They’re planted entirely on their own rootstocks, with networks that extend 40 feet down, and they eke out tiny, richly concentrated grapes with scintillating natural acidity. To the nearly equal parts Zinfandel, Carignane, and Mataro, Cline adds splashes of Petite Sirah and Alicante Bouschet that deepen the wine’s color and aromatics. 

The grapes reflect the varieties that dominated the landscape during the California wine industry’s pre-Prohibition days. “The question was, why did early growers plant so much of those three varieties?” Matt explained. “When I made this wine, I found out: It’s the complete wine.”