Lets now have a quick little look into the Trinitas Cellars vineyard itself. Located in Napa Valley California, Trinitas Cellars was established in 2002 by the Husband & Wife team of Tim & Steph Busch. The Busch family currently run the vineyard and do so from a godly standpoint as they point out on their website http://www.trinitascellars.com/Our-Story/Meet-The family and are very respected in their Catholic faith. When referring to Tim Busch the Trinitas cellars website says the following "Additionally, he (Tim Busch) serves on Boards for The Catholic University of America, Patrons of the Vatican Arts, John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington DC and the Papal Foundation". The vineyard is a small one however Trinitas cellars has three different wine club consisting of The Trinity Club, Cardinal Club and finally the White Wine Club. Trinitas has a very unique tasting room which is located 40 feet below the actual vineyard in a cave and consists partly of a tasting bar which is made of beautiful marble and is located directly behind the Meritage Resort and Spa. The underground tasting room also happens to be the first underground tasting room in Napa. The tasting room is open daily from 11:00 am - 7:00 pm. The winemaker for Trinatas is Kevin Mills who joined Trinitas in 2007 after he spent approximately five years mentoring under Peju Province Winery winemaker Sean Foster. Lets now move on to the part we have all been waiting for and that is the tasting. As I stated above having realized that I had never heard of let alone tasted a Mataro or a Mourvèdre or Monastrel as it is also called I was excited to see what this grape was all about. This wine is actually 81% Mataro, 9% Black Malvoisie, 7% petite Sirah and 3% Alicante Bouschet. What an incredible combination it turned out being by the way. I also decided that this was as good a time as any to open the box containing my new wine glasses I had recently purchased which is the Robert Mondavi By Waterford, Wine Tasting Collection. These beautiful glasses are real Crystal and each have a capacity of 16 ounces. They are 9 inches high x 3 inches in diameter. I grabbed one of these beautifully made glasses as well as the Mataro and headed upstairs to my wine tasting room for what, to my surprise would turn out to be a review of way more than just an everyday wine. In keeping with my belief that a wine is best tasted at room temperature that is what I did. I also made the decision to not decant this wine. This wine, by the way was aged for 14 months in approximately 27% New American and French Oak. The first pour of our wine revealed a light to medium purple, almost plum in color. I filled my glass approximately a quarter of the way full and I proceeded to get down to business. The first thing I noticed apart from the color was that my nose was struck with the big, bright, incredible bouquet of this wine. The wine glass just erupted with fruit and oak. There was also the very nice taste of oak and a bright, power packed cherry mixed with blackberry and Cassis. The wine did strike me as having a bit of an alcohol taste but it did seem to compliment the wine rather than detract from it. The Mataro grape when made into wine sometimes can display a slightly high level of alcohol. This is most definitely a "big fruit" wine without a doubt. The wine explodes with flavor in your mouth. The wine was slightly on the dry side but again nothing that detracted from the taste in fact the slight dryness mixed with the bouquet and powerful fruit seemed to again compliment each other and increased the overall taste and enjoyment of the wine. There were also quite a bit of Tannins that held up very well in this wine to help ensure that it still maintained that powerhouse status in my opinion and will also ensure that this wine will hold up for at least another five or so years. Remember this is a 2005 bottle of wine that sold for $20. Talk about a deal. The end result in this tasting is that I was highly impressed with this wine and the fact that it has held up so well. The Bouquet, the taste, everything was simply wonderful. This happens to be a sign of the great knowledge and caring that the winemaker, Kevin Mills has put into his wine. It is also a sign that time was taken to craft this wine from the soil to the bottle, or as Trinitas Cellars says "the connection among sun, soil, and humanity". In summarizing, this is one heck of a wine and one not to be missed.
I wanted to add this little bit of information in closing. Having enjoyed this wine so much I searched around on the Internet and was unable to find his wine available for purchase Since there was only between 367 & 700 (depending on whom you talk to) cases made originally this is understandable. I contacted Trinitas Cellars themselves and was informed that the wine is not available. I am sorry to say that unless you, the reader currently has a bottle of this wine you will just have to go thru life knowing that you did lose out on tasting a great bottle of wine. If you do happen to have a bottle in your wine cellar treat it well because you have Gold there Sir.
The Desert Wine Guy
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