Location: Contra Costa, CA
Alcohol: 13.1%

Lifted aromatics lean into a deceptively concentrated palate. This wine is sculpted and bristling with energy. Crushed rock, mint, lavender, and dried flowers meld into a core of blue/purplish fruit. This gorgeous, transparent Mataro is all nerve.

For optimal extraction, we favor daily pumpovers during fermentation. Additions focused on yeast nutrients when needed. Maceration lasted two weeks. The wine was then pressed off into neutral French oak (500L puncheon and 228L barriques) and bottled fourteen months later.

The 2021 Del Barba Mataro was sourced from own rooted vines planted in the pure sand of Contra Costa County during the 1920’s (with scattered interplants from the mid 1980’s). Today, the vineyard is the literal backyard of family patriarch Fred Del Barba. An exact planting date is unknown, but the 88-year-old remembers even as a boy the vines were already well established.