Zinfandel

Since it was first planted there in the 1850s, California has laid claim to Zinfandel as its own.  Because Zinfandel belongs to the vitis vinifera family of Europen vines, it cannot have originated there, but California did put Zinfandel on the map and remains by far its preeminent area of cultivation.

Research to determine Zinfandel’s possible link to Italy’s Primitivo began in 1967, when plant pathologist Austin Goheen saw a resemblance between the two vines while in Apulia.  He took Primitivo cuttings back to his base at the University of California at Davis, but could never conclusively determine the two to be identical. Goheen’s research led him in 1977 to a Croatian vine called Plavac Mali, again with inconclusive results.

It was only in 1994 that Carole Meredith, a plant geneticist at Davis, established, through DNA typing, that Zinfandel and Primitivo are genetically the same, but clones of the same variety and not identical, and that neither is indigenous to Italy.

She picked up on the Croatian trail with scientists Ivan Pejic and Edi Maletic, and found Plavac Mali in fact to be the offspring of Zinfandel and a vine called Dobricic, but this still did not establish Zinfandel as Croatian.  Finally in late 2001, Pejic discovered an obscure plot of nine vines called Crljenak Kastelanski, which Meredith proved to be identical to Zinfandel.  Whether it was earlier brought to Croatia from Greece or Albania is unclear.

Zinfandel’s route to America was not through Italy at all, but through Austria in 1820, when George Gibbs brought cuttings from Vienna to Long Island.  The name, in use since 1832, probably arose through confusion with the Austrian Zierfandler vine.  In 1851, the vine travelled to California, and Agoston Haraszthy, father of California viticulture, is believed to have first planted it.  By 1889, Zinfandel was the state’s most widely planted vine, firmly rooted in Napa and Sonoma.

In the Cabernet craze of the early 1980s, Zinfandel might have disappeared had it not been resurrected by Robert Trinchero, the first to introduce white Zinfandel from Sutter Home, and Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards, who made the first serious red Zinfandel.  By 1998, Zinfandel was again California’s most widely planted fine red vine.

Zinfandel is moderately vigorous and requires a long, warm, abundantly sunny growing season with hot days and cool nights to fully develop its flavors and maintain acidity.  The vine is best suited to thin, minerally, well-drained soils which help curb is high productivity.

It ripens early and notoriously unevenly, often yielding green berries and raisins on the same bunch at harvest.  The semi-compact clusters bear medium sized, thick skinned dusky blue-black grapes of intense berry flavor, good acidity, firm tannins and soaring sugar levels which can reach seventeen percent potential alcohol.

Depending on care of cultivation and age of vines, Zinfandel assumes many personalities, and is occasionally blended with a bit of Petit Sirah.  It also contributes to many of California’s fortified wines.  Well made dry Zinfandel is an aromatic, brawny, full bodied, densely textured wine with jammy, briary flavors of black fruit, plums and raisins.  It may exhibit pronounced notes of pepper, spice, rose petals and chocolate on the nose and the palate, and takes well to restrained oak contact, which lends nuances of cedar, vanilla and tobacco.  Also grown in Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and fourteen other U.S. states.