  This paper presents preliminary results of a spectroscopic survey being
conducted at the VLT of fields with optically-selected cluster candidates
identified in the EIS I-band survey. Here we report our findings for three
candidates selected for having estimated redshifts in the range z=0.8-1.1. New
multi-band optical/infrared data were used to assign photometric redshifts to
galaxies in the cluster fields and to select possible cluster members in
preparation of the spectroscopic observations. Based on the available
spectroscopic data, which includes 147 new redshifts for galaxies with
Iab<22-23, we confirm the detection of four density enhancements at a
confidence level >99%. The detected concentrations include systems with
redshifts z=0.81, z=0.95, z=1.14 and the discovery of the first
optically-selected cluster at z=1.3. The latter system, with three concordant
redshifts, coincides remarkably well with the location of a firm X-ray
detection (>5sigma) in a ~80ksec XMM-Newton image taken as part of this program
which will be presented in a future paper (Neumann et al. 2002). The z>1
systems presented here are possibly the most distant identified so far by their
optical properties alone.
