Owner Matt Trevisan uses many blending techniques to create his wines at Linne Calodo Winery in Paso Robles, California.
Linne Calodo
California winemaker Matt Trevisan loves to work with his hands and does duties that many other winery owners leave to others.
“I fix everything from tractors, trucks, pumps, forklifts, fermentations, gates, etcetera,” says Trevisan, whose Linne Calodo winery in Paso Robles is known for its Rhone and zinfandel blends.
Trevisan and his wife Maureen founded the winery in 1998, and, besides his handiness, he says an educational background in aeronautical engineering and biochemistry has been very helpful in winemaking. He entered Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to study areonautical engineering and earned a pilot certificate before graduating with a biochemistry degree.
“During my time at Cal Poly, I worked in the chemistry stock rooms,” Trevisan recalls. “My supervisor had worked in the wine industry, and her husband worked in grower relations for Robert Mondavi. She was the first one to suggest I look at the wine industry.”
Trevisan say his engineering and chemistry mind has enabled him to design roads at the winery, plan infrastructure and construct buildings.
“The ability to visualize and then construct is hugely helpful,” he says. “I have the capability of looking at a problem, looking at the engineering and assessing the proper method for fixing the issue. Often times, it starts with turning wrenches.”
Wine drinkers, though, talk about the quality of Linne Colodo’s blends — not the winery’s infrastructure. The Rhone blends sell for $95 on the winery’s website.
The blends are aging at the Linne Colodo winery in Paso Robles, California.
Linne Calodo
Trevisan explains the genesis of the Rhone blends.
“We were looking at similarities to the Mediterranean climate and soils and the historic blending of grenache, syrah and mourvedre,” he says. “These wines were inspirational, and the canvas was blank. It seemed like the native and natural path for where we should go, along with zinfandel-based blends which have a proven history here in Paso Robles.”
Linne Colodo just released its 2021 Level Headed, consisting of 85% grenache, 8% syrah and 7% mourvedre grapes and aged for 29 months in a French oak foudre. Four hundred eighty cases were produced. The 2021 vintage marks the second release of Level Headed, following its inaugural 2019 vintage.
The grapes harvested for 2021 Level Headed came predominantly from Gabbi’s Block, a steep parcel of land that faces northeast at Linne Calodo’s Stonethrower vineyard, located 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean at an elevation of 1,350 feet.
Linne Colodo’s blends differ from some of the best ones from Napa Valley.
“My blends are less conventional and perhaps more energetic in style,” Trevisan says. “I never sought out being a top blend. I’m blending for perfection, chemistry balance and either easy drinking or defined tannin composition that will allow aging.”
Wildfires are always a concern in California, so Linne Colodo takes preventative measures. Nearly 30 wineries were damaged or destroyed in 2017 wildfires in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, according to the. San Bernardino Sun. Linne Colodo is in San Luis Obispo County, hundreds of miles south of those wineries.
“The wildfires have remained far away so far, but the Cal Fire air attack base is only 10 miles away at the Paso Robles Airport,” Trevisan says. “We do a lot of mitigation for wildfires each year on our properties. This includes grazing sheep and keeping the floor of our oak forest clean. This requires us to go through the forest every year after harvest and create burn piles with all the fallen wood that is too small for firewood. We burn these piles between December and March. We like to say we either burn under control, or it will burn during the summer out of control.”
The federal government’s arrests of illegal immigrants working in the California wine industry don’t sit well with Trevisan.
“I think they have put fear in a work force that is just trying to have a better life,” the winery owner says. “The saber rattling and ethnic targeting is regressive. I will keep waiting for the day that a bunch of gringos work as hard out in the field as the immigrants who feed our country.”
Trevisan says his future winemarking plans are to replicate what he has done for so many years.
“I like producing small lots of wine that tell a truthful story,” he says. “I am very careful to keep winemaking fun. I would like to see my children take over the reins and their children to find joy in what we have created here in Paso Robles. Multigenerational winemaking is my dream.”