TL;DR: 10 acres in Lake County, Ca., 13 cultivars - mostly Italian including Sangiovese, Barbera and Aglianico + many more, including Cab, Grenache and Chardonnay. Former professional chef, no new oak, old-school style that can age. Unfined, unfiltered wines that are from grapes we grow without herbicides or pesticides at 1,500’. Most of the wines have received 90-95 points in Wine Enthusiast if that floats your boat, plus a big discount!!
Hello, and thank you for checking out Prima Materia and our second year of offers! We have been planting grapes and making wine since 2008, living out a fascination with Italian grapes and clean + minimalist winemaking for a while now. We are probably best know for our Sangiovese, Barbera, and Aglianico, but we have planted 13 different cultivars – including Sagrantino, Refosco, Negro Amaro and then some – on 10 acres at 1,500’ in the Kelsey Bench AVA of Lake County, just over the hill from Napa, Mendocino and Sonoma counties. “We” are a 1.2-person operation, making about 1,500 estate bottled cases per year – most of which we sell through our tasting room in Oakland, Ca. and https://www.prima-materia.com. I’m Pietro, the 1 part, field crew, winemaker, bottle washer, and I really hate talking about myself so there is an interview Grape Collective that goes into Prima Materia’s background.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Prima Materia is the “first matter” in alchemy which changes forms and can transmute from lead to gold. Our labels are mostly alchemy images from old books depicting different stages and approaches to this goal of turning things into higher forms, which is the goal each step of the way.
Without further ado - THE OFFERS:
#1: The “Try Us Out” 6-pack for $175 with $0-cost shipping (roughly 20-30% off including shipping). This 6-pack has one bottle each of:
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Vermentino
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Zinfandel
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Dolcetto
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Barbera
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Nebbiolo
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Aglianico
#2: The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 6-pack $175 with $0-cost shipping (roughly 30+% off including shipping, depending on choices)
Peruse our 20 wines, and choose any 6 that you want for $175 with $0-cost shipping.
#3: The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 12-pack for $300 with $50-shipping credit (roughly 40+% off including shipping, depending on your wine choices)
Peruse our 20 wines, and choose any 12 that you want (or let me choose my favorites) for $300 with $50 credit for shipping, meaning as low as free, or as high as $25 for shipping. You can see the details above, but at checkout a tab containing your state will popup - just click it to see if there are any shipping charges beyond the $50 credit.
To order please go to:https://www.prima-materia.com/berserker-day for the Berserker offers.
All of our wines can be found and researched if you want by going to the “purchase” tab at the top of our website since the Berserker deals are hidden.
Ordering When ordering one of the choose-your-own-adventure 6 or 12-packs, just write in the 6 or 12 bottles and quantities (Nebbiolo 1, Barbera 2, etc.) that you want in the “add a note” section of the checkout cart, choose the shipping destination state, in or out of California, or Bay Area delivery, and that is it! It can be a case of all Chardonnay, or all Nebbiolo! If you want baller Aglianico and Sagrantino and aren’t attached to your tooth enamel? Go for it. Want pretty pretty Grenache and Dolcetto that drinks like fancy Gamay? We make those too. It is a very nice Chard by the way. I will provide brief notes below but please check out the wines on the website for much deeper info. There are even podcasts on many varietals, YouTube videos from 2020’s Covid downer online tastings, blog posts, and technical data sheets to vineyard map on the website.
Any questions – either discuss here and I’ll answer, or just email info@prima-materia.com, hell you can even text me at 707-391-0492. I will try to respond promptly.
Shipping: CA, OR, WA, and AZ will ship via GSO. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area I will personally deliver. Other states will ship via UPS. We can’t ship to ND, NH, UT, MS, AL, AR, VT, KY, SD, AK, or HI. Sorry about that - write your local representatives. Sadly we are supposed to collect the rather brutal Oakland, Ca. sales tax of 10.25%, which makes me look like a jerk. If it really chaps your hide, let me know and I’ll put some cash back in the shipper since I have philosophical issues with the system myself, even with being required to pay your home state sales tax with excise in compliance if applicable.
Please remember that someone will need to sign for the shipment, so if shipping to a workplace is best, simply add the delivery address and I will see that it is different than the billing address.
I will start shipping out orders next week - depending on weather and location. Below freezing is no good.
A further note and plea for understanding on shipping:
Shipping costs are even higher than last year, despite lower gas prices. A case to Michigan costs $70 for me right now. Remote areas in Michigan add another $20. Ct. and Me. are the same, which is brutal. A 6-pack to Ct. costs $49-$57. THATS IS $9 PER BOTTLE BEFORE PACKAGING!! without even getting into excise taxes and all that compliance stuff. I’m doing the best I can here and am shooting for wholesale prices. Just wanted to take a breath, shake off the small business blues, and be transparent here. I am applying a $50 credit to all shipping. The first $50 is on me, meaning 6-packs will ship free everywhere we ship in the US, 12-pack shipping is free to the eastern Colorado border. Going east from there please find your state bracket at checkout, and there will be a small additional charge which is the leftover after the $50 credit is applied. The case is still the best value though!
Prima Materia currently has 20 wines on our website, 18 of which are estate grown and bottled. You can view them all by going to www.prima-materia.com/buy-wine and brief descriptions are below. I planted most of these myself, drove stakes, endposts, wire and laid drip lines. Several wines are just 1-2 barrels made per year. This is how the vineyard was planted, and that carries through the bottling. I really worked hard to make this is good a deal as possible, and simple yet flexible. You can choose the wines you want, but I am also happy to choose for you if so desired.
A BUNCH OF INFO FOR THE WINE GEEKS - MORE INFO IS ON OUR WEBSITE
Stylistically, Lake County is a pretty warm and higher-altitude growing region, though we can be well below freezing in the winter, summers and warm and sunny with blue skies almost every day. Many of our wines are around the 14% mark, and I do a lot in the vineyard to try to restrain that. That of course is not uncommon for Barbera, Sangiovese, Negro Amaro, etc. even from the old country. Sagrantino is an unstoppable sugar factory, so that is the highest at 14.8% The Dolcetto is 13.0%, and the Zin is like an old-school field blend at an honest 14.01%. The others are all in the middle. Unless you have the palate of a saint, and can regularly distinguish between 13.2 and 13.4% ABV like clockwork, I encourage you to not make choices based on alcohol levels. While too much alcohol is definitely too much, ideology is always the true enemy, and breaking those shackles will get us out of this post-modern mess, but I digress. No, all wines were not in fact 12.5% in the old days. Yes, Nebbiolo, Barbera and Sagrantino have always been high-sugar grapes when managed on the vine. Yes, I have been part of dealcoholization trials, and it is true that you get radically different wines with just a .1% shift in alcohol, but it is not linear, and I’ve experienced the 13.7% feeling hotter than the 14.8%. That said, I try my best…
Some of our wines are intentionally non-vintage. I don’t have a problem with that. Sometimes multi-vintage can work together as a solution to some of the more trying years we have had. 2019 was the last moderate vintage while for us 2020 was a very hot vintage and a little skronky for some wines, and after trials sometimes the sum of those two vintages had a more compelling profile. 2021 was the hottest vintage ever in Lake County, and those wines are different again. But if it doesn’t need to be done, then I don’t do it. Ironically, some of our benchmark wines are regularly non-vintage: Sagrantino, Nebbiolo - 3 vintages in that one, Aglianico and Zinfandel, all killer. A narrative arc or idiosyncratic edges are much more important than blending to fill holes, soften, or enrich. Prima Materia doesn’t blend to the middle - were aren’t about increasing body or tamping down a grape’s natural edges. Nothing is less interesting to me than “rich and full bodied” even if a couple of our wines naturally approach that. I’ll take “interesting” - the good interesting, not the this-sucks-but-I-can’t-say-that-interesting - over hedonistic any day.
We get plenty of forward fruit in sunny Lake County, so my job is to build up the earth and spice, stay away from new oak, and give enough barrel time so that structure, earthiness, and then fruit are all in balance, then go unfined and unfiltered. I like lees, every action has a reaction, so if I stir them, we lose some aromatics and may round of the edges and make a wine heavier, so these are actions only taken with much thought. A bit of restraint and discipline, a bit of burliness, a dash of feral, and a strong vein of honest thoughtful pretty is the aesthetic goal. The two wines in the lineup that we did not grow are from only 5 miles away btw…
Many of our heavier wines need a little time and air to wake up. I hand bottle our wines since we can’t get a bottling trailer into our “winery”, so I force them into a somewhat reduced state before bottling, plus I like time on lees. This also helps solidify the Old World aspects and tannic texture that Prima Materia is going for. 15 minutes of air should be good. Less tannic wines like the Dolcetto, Zin, Negro Amaro or Grenache are ready to go. Non-commodity wine is a living thing - give it a little time to wake up, or at least a bit of aggressive swirling, and be rewarded…
Here is a brief overview of most wines with 3rd party tasting blurbs - please go to our website for deeper information https://www.prima-materia.com/buy-wine
2019 Chardonnay - Stainless aged, 25-year-old vines, Wente clone. “This mellow and minerally wine brings savory elements to the aromas and flavors rather than overt fruity ones, giving it an unusual and interesting complexity. Earthy tones meet subtle fennel and lemon flavors on the palate, and good concentration leads to a lingering finish.” 92 point WE for the 2018, the 2019 is almost identical
2019 Vermentino - Medium weight (rather than an acid laser) due to the hot 2020 vintage pre harvest and a bit of skin contact, stainless aged, lemon curd goodness and a bit of texture herb from 1,700’ in the Red Hills AVA five miles away from us.
2021 Rosés - We make two of them: light and crisp vin gris (practically a white wine) of Sangiovese & Nebbiolo, and a dark rosé of Barbera and Algianico that is barrel aged. Both are great and unique if you like pink.
2021 Carbonic Nebbiolo Bright and fun but with a little more tannin and depth than many other carbonic wines. This was a fun take on Neb that I had wanted to explore for years, like a more fun Langhe Nebbiolo. 90 cases made.
Grenache - “This is a gloriously fresh, ripe, light and delicious grenache, offering a totally transparent ruby-brick red hue and winsome aromas of sour cherry and melon, cloves, briers and brambles with a touch of raspberry and its leaf; plenty of lip-smacking acidity holds the wine together, yet it feels almost weightless on the palate; mild tannins, sporting with dust and graphite, provide essential structure.” - Bigger Than Your Head. As this has aged some great herbal tones have blossomed, going from pure bottled sunshine to Rhone-ish sophistication from some whole cluster and time. 3 barrels made
2019 Dolcetto - “This flavorful, smoky and moderately tannic wine offers black-pepper, bell-pepper and charred meat aromas backed by black-fruit flavors. It’s lively, distinctive and offers a good change of pace from the usual French varietals.” - 90 pts. WE (This was cofermented with 10% Chardonnay and has bit of the floral-but-meaty cofermented aspect.) Made in the style of Gamay.
2019 Sangiovese - Roasted plums and cherries, light herbs and leather give this full-bodied wine plenty to appreciate. Moderate tannins support relatively rich fruit flavors, delivering good balance. The wine used 20% whole clusters in the fermentation and aged for 22 months in neutral barrels - 91 pts. Wine Enthusiast.
NB: this is definitely not full bodied, grumble grumble. I work hard to preserve that hole in the mid-palate that other winemakers fill with Cab. And, Sangiovese may be my favorite grape…
Zinfandel - “The result is an invigorating, high-elevation Zin that had us refilling our glasses and asking why more California producers who work with the variety don’t take a few pages out of Italy’s book… The fruit—wild blackberry, black plum, boysenberry, pomegranate, cranberry, and cherry—is certainly juicy, but not at all in a cloying way; rather, it mirrors the delightful freshness of just-squeezed, unripe forest berries. Accents of damp moss, sage, tobacco smoke, freshly turned earth, and black pepper add savory layers of complexity to a Zinfandel that reminds us how good this variety can taste when it’s not masked by aggressive winemaking and excessive ripeness”. - SommSelect, 14.01% ABV. This one was based on the idea of what a North Coast field blend might have been like in 1900.
2020 Negro Amaro - The 2019 is reviewed here (I haven’t received a 2020 review yet), which was a little heavier from longer hang time in a cool year, the 2020 is lighter weight but still with the unique Negro Amaro aromatics of olive, fig, etc.: “This fascinating, full-bodied and complex wine offers an unusual and intriguing array of roasted chestnut, wild-blackberry and grilled herb flavors on a full body with moderate tannins. It demands repeated sipping and savoring to tease out its many nuances.” 93 points WE.
2019 Barbera - “A funky, reduced aroma at first whiff evolves into complex meaty, fruity and leathery flavors in this full-bodied and moderately tannic wine. Tangy acidity backs up red and black fruit for good balance. ” - 90 points, WE.
I will add that this is 3 different clones, all fermented separately since they have different fruit characteristics, trying to preserve that pomegranate layer and blackberry layer from the vineyard blocks. It ain’t full bodied but rather a nice medium+, and the cooler, wetter 2019 vintage let me lean into the Barbera fun box of funk, though still driven by dark berries and the juicy mouthfeel that defines the grape.
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon - “This bold, complex and true-to-type wine offers heady tobacco, turned earth and dark-chocolate aromas followed by opulent, concentrated black-cherry, black olive and blueberry flavors, all embraced by moderate, fine-grained tannins that are beautifully integrated. Prima Materia specializes in Italian varietals but this French varietal could be its best wine yet.” 95 pts., Cellar Selection, Wine Enthusiast. The numbers were perfect, nothing added, unfined, unfiltered, and very focused. 19 months in barrel, 26-day maceration. From a vineyard 5 miles away from ours on former Clear Lake lakebed. 14.18% ABV
(I am probably supposed to lead with the highest scoring wine, but…)
Nebbiolo - In the NorCal warm-climate tradition of being closer to Barbaresco than Barolo (bite your tongue idyllic Santa Barbara oversaturated fruit that I’m jealous of) but with hints of the truffle and leather tones definitely there. Classic tannin, a little less acidity than our Italian counterparts but still vibrant, crushed raspberry and cranberry, fig, and we got the florals of rose and violet already. A strategic blend of 2017, 2018, and 2019 vintages. Let it breath my friends! I am excited for where this will be in a couple years. 14.4% ABV
Refosco - A divisive grape that is historically fascinating, some finding it bitter and metallic, others smooth. The prior vintage had a fascinating bloody iodine streak while this one is subdued. “The color shades through black to purple to magenta; notes of spiced and macerated red currants, cherries and plums are married to darker hints of loam, graphite and briery forest qualities; this is sleek and lithe on the palate, but with the slight drag of mildly dusty tannins for texture; the oak regimen provides a subliminal shaping effect on the wine’s flow through the mouth, allowing for a structure that’s light, elegant, almost delicate.” - Bigger Than Your Head.
I will say this is drinking very nicely right now, slightly med+ weight but with beautiful spice and savory notes, great with food.
Sagrantino - I planted the vines in 2012, and 10 years later we are just releasing our second bottling. Sigh. Imagine a Dry Creek Zin punching you in the face repeatedly. A great California-esque fruit core of crushed red berries, high tones of watermelon and rose, then savory cedar, walnut, fig, leather, cardamom, with medium acidity and a wall of fine-grained tannin gluing your wine hole shut. It is a youngin’ so decant, but it has enough innate pleasure fruit that you could sneak it to your nanna and watch her smile and then wince. Randall Grahm isn’t a fan of the density, and though in lighter wines I want decompressed layers upon layers, I say sometimes you want, nay, need the sticky icky white dwarf of wines.
2019 “The Katechon” - 2 barrels made of 50/50 Cabernet Sauvignon and Aglianico blend, not even released yet. This is the odd wine of the lineup with a bit of oak, basically a “modern” (no, not post- post-modern hyper conformist natty) Super Campanian, super forward, super precise going for the Napa hillside profile, maybe Spring Mountain-ish with just a kiss of French oak. Not heavy, if anything the Aglianico tightens the Cabernet’s roundness a hair, wrapping it tight and pushes some red fruit onto it with a mineral streak, while the Cab ads a little flesh and purple fruit to the Aglianico and polishes the rough edges a bit. Aged in 3-year old Taransaud French oak. 14.5%
Aglianico - “Superconcentrated black-fruit flavors and a firm, grippy texture combine for a powerful expression of this Italian grape variety. Blackberries and boysenberries practically explode on the palate, while good, moderate tannins nicely balance out their fruitiness.” - 92 points, WE.
'17 and '18 vintages combined here, 30 months in barrel averaged on lees, over a year in bottle before releasing, arguably our most important bottling as far as a big Cabernet competitor that can go toe-to-toe with hillside Napa Cab at half the price.
A few wines aren’t listed here - please see the store page for the full line up. For more info:
https://www.prima-materia.com/buy-wine
Thanks!
Oh, and I PROMISE to take part more frequently on these boards! I miss so much while running a vineyard, winery, tasting room, shipping and delivery service, etc., but the best discussions are on this website, and I learn from others every time I visit. Cheers!