Quick and dirty overview: We grow 10 acres of grapes in Lake County, Ca. which borders Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, and planted a bunch of mostly Italian grapes including Sangiovese, Barbera and Aglianico + others with a little Grenache and Chardonnay for good measure. I am a former professional chef who fell in love with Italian wine, old-school in spirit but with a clean and bright California-meets-Old-School style that can age. No herbicides or pesticides at 1,500’ elevation in red volcanic soils. Most of the wines have received 90-95 points in Wine Enthusiast if that floats your boat, plus a big discount and FREE SHIPPING!!**
Hello, and thank you for checking out Prima Materia and our fourth year of offers! We have been planting vines and making wine since 2008, living out a fascination with Italian grapes and thoughtful winemaking that ages. While Sangiovese, Barbera, and Aglianico are great introductions, the real surprises are things like Sagrantino, Refosco, Nebbiolo, and Negro Amaro which we grow at 1,500’ in the Kelsey Bench AVA of Lake County, just over the hill from Napa, Mendocino and Sonoma counties. “We” are a tiny 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 person-part, field crew, winemaker, bottle washer, and I really hate talking about myself so if you want you can read recent write-ups in Wine Enthusiast Magazine (How a Lake County Sangiovese Producer Captures the Essence of Italy | Wine Enthusiast) and Esther Mobley’s SF Chronicle article. (https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/prima-materia-wine-17755033.php) Occasionally I do write a little too, so there are detailed vintage reports on the website blog, musings, recipes, etc.
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, from the earth to the sky.
Without further ado - HERE ARE THE OFFERS:
#1: The “Try Us Out” 6-pack for $175 with $0-cost shipping (roughly 30% off including shipping). This all-red 6-pack has one bottle each of:
- Barbera
- Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley Old Vines that I take care of - the only non-estate bottle)
- Sangiovese
- Negro Amaro
- Nebbiolo
- Aglianico
#2: The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 6-pack $175 with $0-cost shipping (roughly 30% off including shipping, depending on choices)
Peruse our many wines, and choose any 6 that you want for $175 with $0-cost shipping.
#3: The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 12-pack for $299 with $0-cost shipping (roughly 40+% off including shipping, depending on your wine choices and location)
Peruse our many wines, and choose any 12 that you want (or let me choose my favorites) for $300. It is that simple, and this is the best deal!
To order please go to:https://www.prima-materia.com/berserker-day for the Berserker offers. There will be three options there. If you choose your own adventure, just list them in the “add note” section of the checkout page.
All of our wines can be found and researched if you want by going to the “purchase” tab at the top of our website, but PLEASE ORDER ON THE BERSERKER PAGE TO GET THE DEALS!
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, Grenache 8, etc.) that you want in the “add a note” section of the checkout cart, 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 elegant Sangiovese? 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 within 10 miles of Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area I will personally deliver if I can. Other states will ship via UPS. We can’t ship to MN, ND, NH, UT, MS, AL, 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 grumbly issues with the system myself, even with being required to pay your home state sales tax, excise tax, and all sorts of legal extortion.
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 crazy. Period. A case to New York costs $84 for me right now, before packaging. Remote areas in Michigan can add another $12. Ct. and Me. are the same, which is brutal. A 6-pack to Chicago costs $55. THATS IS $9 PER BOTTLE BEFORE PACKAGING!! without even getting into excise taxes. 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. The case offer is still the best value though!
Prima Materia currently has about 14 wines on our website, 13 of which are estate grown and bottled. You can view them all by going to www.prima-materia.com/buy-wine for the full story of each one, 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 are warm and sunny with blue skies almost every day. Many of our wines are around the 13-14.5% 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 Barbera is barely 13.0%, and the Old Vine Zin is like an old-school dry-farmed early-pick vineyard at an honest 13.8%. 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 past this post-modern mess, but I digress. No, all wines were not in fact 12.5% in the old days - the labels often lied. Yes, Nebbiolo, Barbera and Sagrantino have always been high-sugar grapes when managed on the vine - pretty much anything with high tannin ends up this way. This is an on-going discussion in viticulture that I love and have lots of thoughts on…
A couple 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 great moderate vintage while for us 2020 was a very warm vintage, 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. In 2022 after a long and cool growing season the first week of September hit 116F followed by days of thunderstorms - it was terrible, but that is the new reality. Winemaking-wise, if it doesn’t need to be done, then I don’t do it, and I always fine that less disruption (fining, filtering, additions, etc.) tends to make the most complete wine. A narrative arc or idiosyncratic edges are much more interesting to me than blending to fill holes, soften, or enrich for us - it needs to taste great but needs to be interesting as well. There is plenty of soulless wine to be had already. Prima Materia doesn’t blend to the middle - were aren’t about increasing body or tamping down a grape’s natural edges or freckles, like the hole in Sangiovese’s middle, the mineral in Refosco or the tannin in Sagrantino. I’ll take the “interesting” - the good interesting, not the this-sucks-but-I-can’t-say-that-interesting - over hedonistic any day. Hopefully we can help those things meet in the middle.
We get plenty of forward fruit in sunny Lake County, so my job is to build up the earth and spice, stay away from overt 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, but every action has a reaction, so if I stir them, we might lose some aromatics and that 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.
Many of our heavier wines need a little time and air to wake up since they go into a somewhat reduced state before bottling, plus I like time on lees, so 24 months in the same barrel on the lees is not uncommon, and the Aglianico will take three years. This also helps solidify the Old World aspects and texture that Prima Materia is going for. 15 minutes of air should be good. Less tannic wines like the Barbera, 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, observe the arc of life for an evening, and be rewarded…
Here is a brief overview of most wines with some 3rd party tasting blurbs - please go to our website for deeper information https://www.prima-materia.com/buy-wine
2022 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
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 (non-vintage)
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 (The Dolcetto is always surprisingly slow to come around, and this one was about 25% whole cluster, adding some Syrah-ish pepper and spice to what is a very red-fruited medium-bodies red. I like where this one is going.)
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 15% 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, produce medium weight and a California echo of Chianti Classico…
**2022 Old Vine (1965) Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County Zinfandel - A vineyard I took care of for a friend and even picked myself. Planted in 1965 with a bit of Cab interplanted. We have Zin (and Primitivo) in our home vineyard and this acts very differently. A really cool mix of red fruit like we get, but with a bunch of blue fruits as well, and some black pepper rustic tones as well. This has more in common with what someone like Bedrock is doing than a raspberry jam bomb.
2022 Negro Amaro - The 2019 is reviewed here, but they are pretty identical (I haven’t received a 2022 review yet) and have the ultra-cool unique Negro Amaro aromatics of olive, fig, etc. and super smooth, juicy framework. It also goes surprisingly well with grilled foods, tacos, and more in the way that Barbera and Zinfandel are great with so many foods: “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.
2022 Barbera - This was a wild vintage, leading to a unique one-time style. At the beginning of September we had a solid week of 117F temperatures, and the day after that broke we received over 2.5" of thunderstorming rain. Usually our Barbera is quite robust - but this is an elegant take that just barely hit 13% ABV. Brimming with fruit, very soft tannin but great acidity, this is like old school Asti, deep in fruit but light on the palate, but since the vines are near 25 years old it also shows some minimality with all of the boysenberry and plum fruit.
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, the little touch of tannin is ultra fine and smooth, but the acidity is very bright and driven by dark berries and the juicy mouthfeel that defines the grape.
2020 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. This is one of my three favorite wines - clearly Nebbiolo, but also California Nebbiolo, a hair softer, and aging beautifully. Let it breathe my friends! I am excited for where this is now and where it will be in a couple years. 14.4% ABV
2021 Refosco - A divisive grape that is historically fascinating, some find velvety smooth with ample plum fruit while others pick up on an intense mineral edge and an iodine note that I personally adore. The prior vintage had a fascinating bloody iodine streak while this one is much more 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.
2021 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 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.
For me this is the great balance of Bordeaux-style red and black fruit, minerality, and that sculpted mid-palate that grapes like Sangiovese are famous for. A very “vertical” wine for me opposed to the roundness of Barbera or California Cabernet.
A couple 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 discussion 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!
