NOTE: For my first ‘blog’ posting here, I’ve chosen not a blog at all; rather, this is a short essay I wrote for an enology course at Santa Rosa Junior College as I work off the rust on my writing chops. I hope you find it informative and interesting! MM

The origins of many cultivated grape varietals (or cultivars) are shrouded in mystery. Although we know more about it than we once did, Zinfandel still holds, perhaps, the greatest secrets of all. Individual cultivars come into their own in a specific time and place: this could be in the lab of a grape propagator or in an ancient nameless vineyard through the process of natural selection. Before genetic fingerprinting, the origins of cultivars were known only through historical research,  geographic analysis, and the identification of progeny – that is, the greater the number of presumed cultivar offspring, the older the original was understood to be. Pinot noir, for example, is known to be an ancient cultivar in part due to the large number of clones (including the Dijon or Pommard clones), genetic mutations (such as pinot gris), and genetic offspring (most famously Chardonnay). But historical research of this type can take one only so far, and sometimes it can send the researcher in the wrong direction. For years, many thought that Syrah originated in the vicinity of Shiraz, a city in Iran, rather than the Northern Rhone in France, both its viticultural home and, as we’ve learned, its genetic birthplace too.

Zinfandel’s mysteries are multiple, all undergirded by this central fact: it is the single vitis vinifera cultivar that has achieved a position of prominence–both in terms of popularity and quality–in the United States which has no comparable position in the Old World. Napa’s Cabernet Sauvignons are directly inspired by, and aspire to, the great red wines of Bordeaux, and the same is true with California Pinot noir riding the coattails, one might say, of Burgundy. Not so with Zinfandel: although one can find Old World Zinfandels, they have found nowhere near the status of their American-grown counterparts. Zinfandel, one might say, is the ultimate Horatio Alger, “bootstrap” cultivar: coming from obscurity in Europe to achieve great success in America. While, as we’ll explore, mysteries remain, many big questions have been answered by researchers, especially historian Charles Sullivan and plant geneticist Carole Meredith.

The arrival of Zinfandel in the United States, according to Sullivan, dates to the 1820s. His entirely plausible account is as follows: a New York nurseryman by the name of George Gibbs imported the vine to the United States, whereby it traveled to Boston and became, for a time, a popular table grape grown in the trendy greenhouses of the wealthy. Following closely upon the discovery of gold in California in 1848, Zinfandel, like many New Englanders of the era, uprooted and headed west, arriving in California as early as 1852 (Sullivan, 6-19). By the 1860s, Zinfandel was planted at Agoston Haraszthy’s famed Buena Vista vineyard just east of the Sonoma Plaza, and from there it ‘took’, spreading throughout Sonoma and Napa counties and eventually to most every corner of the state. Sullivan notes that by the 1880s “its preeminence [was] manifest” among all other cultivars. Following economic depression and a grape glut, Zinfandel seems to have lost some of its luster in the 1890s, thereafter becoming one part, albeit the most important part, of the famed California red field blend, often including Carignane, Petit Sirah, and other black grapes (Sullivan, 36; Twain-Peterson). Carole Meredith, formerly a plant geneticist with UC Davis, filled in an important part of the cultivar’s backstory by discovering where it originated. In the 1990s, she documented the long rumored association between California’s Zinfandel and Italy’s Primitivo, proving the two to be genetically identical, although clonal differences exist. Then, in 2002, she presented research identifying the Tribidrag cultivar, grown in Croatia since at least the 1400s, as a match for Zinfandel, thus making Tribidrag the primordial specimen (Sweet, 2018).

With a history so interesting, so full of mystery and discovery, Zinfandel has a lot to live up to in the sensory department. Winemakers, critics, and enthusiasts tend to agree that its unique story manifests in its expression. Yet, there is wide disagreement on its specific attributes, in part because in the glass it is a versatile varietal that can be made in a range of styles, which in turn have been strongly impacted by changing winemaker and consumer tastes. Marnie Old, for example, calls it out for producing “strong, jammy reds,” where Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson note its capacity for producing high alcohol red wines and the much-maligned, lightly sweetened White Zinfandel (Old, 204; Johnson, 17). A well made Zinfandel, however, picked at lower brix with higher acidity produces wines of finesse and structure, firmly in the red fruit zone rather than expressing the dark black fruit (i.e. jammy) flavors that were so popular in the 1990s. Critic Antonio Galloni of Vinous regularly pulls out these more “balanced” characteristics of Zinfandel (or Zinfandel-leading blends) from top producer Bedrock: “super expressive and delicate… a wine of precision and sublime elegance” (Bedrock ‘Dolinsek’ 2022); “sweet floral and spice notes meld into a core of sweet red fruit” (Bedrock ‘Ode to Joel’ 2022); and “very pretty and understated … spice, leather, tobacco, and dried herbs” (Bedrock ‘Nervo’ 2022). For a personal aside, my father collected some Napa Valley Zinfandels produced in the 1970s from Louis Martini (actually Monte Rosso fruit from Sonoma), Chateau Montelena, and Robert Mondavi. In the 2000s, I had the opportunity to taste a number of these wines (having not been consumed in a timely fashion and not optimally stored, I considered this a sort of rescue mission), and they were remarkable. With stated ABV levels at around 12.5%, these were not the fruit bombs of the 1990s but wines of balance that aged remarkably well. I’d situate them somewhere between an old Bandol and aged Burgundy.

While California is Zinfandel’s adopted home turf, where in 2020 it was the third most widely planted red cultivar, it is grown and enjoyed elsewhere around the globe too (California Grape Acreage Report). Starting with its genetic birthplace in Croatia, Tribidrag (perhaps the earliest recorded name of Zinfandel) is still grown in that rocky, windswept land on the eastern shore of the Adriatic sea, but not in great quantities. In fact, until its link to California’s Zinfandel was discovered, there were no Croatian Tribidrag/Zinfandel wines bottled varietally and the cultivar was on the verge of extinction (Sweet). Croatian Premium Wine, an exporter of Croatian wine to the United States, lists scores of red and white wines but only three from Tribidrag/Zinfandel. The website of the Croatian wine industry claims there are only 250 acres of vine planted in the country (Best Kept Secret). Current scholarship claims Tribidrag migrated to Italy, in particular the southern region of Puglia,  in the 1700s. There the cultivar became known as Primitivo, meaning “the first” vine to ripen, which also happens to be the meaning of Tribidrag (Sweet). According to Johnson and Robinson, Primitivo produces wines with “fiendishly high alcohol levels” so “it takes the right hands to strike the right voluptuous note” (Johnson, 183). Other minor plantings of Zinfandel can be found in Australia, France, and Mexico.

An ampelography of Zinfandel provided by Rhonda Smith, the former UCCE advisor to Sonoma County, offers a basic description of vine’s morphology: 

Clusters: medium to large; cylindrical to long conical, often winged, sometimes with double wings, compact; often with a wide range of ripe and under-ripe berries. 

Berries: medium to large; round to oblate; deep blue-black; 

Leaves: medium to large; deeply 5-lobed, often overlapping; lyre-shaped petiolar sinus; long, jagged teeth; dense hair on lower leaf surface. 

Smith notes that Zinfandel is grown throughout California, where it is adapted to a wide variety of climates and soils, but also that it tends to be highly vigorous if grown in nutrient-rich soil. A heritage clone program has been collecting samples of the best Zinfandel in that state, resulting in improved vine material for new plantings, but it is still notorious for uneven ripening no matter the seasonal conditions (Smith). Zinfandel is one of the few cultivars still regularly head-trained, cane-pruned, and grafted to St. George rootstock, all of which have been common viticultural practices since the 1880s.

While researchers have solved several of Zinfandel’s mysteries, those that persist might well stay shrouded in the unknown indefinitely. The matter of Zinfandel’s name is at the top of the list. Little is known beyond an early, brief mention in an 1830 American book of a “Black Zinfardel of Hungary,” but that name was not known in Europe at the time (Sweet). How and why “Zinfandel” became attached to this cultivar remains a mystery. Precisely how the vine came to the United States remains undocumented as well, but a good if unproven hypothesis suggests it came from the royal botanical gardens of the Hapsburg Empire. The greatest of Zinfandel’s mysteries, however, persists for us to wrestle with: how and why did Zinfandel succeed in becoming one of the most popular and treasured wines in California? The answer, forever subject to historical interpretation, resists certainty and instead might best be found in contemplating the glass of wine itself.

Works Cited:

California Grape Acreage Report, 2021 Summary. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Grapes/Acreage/2022/grpacSUMMARY2021Crop.pdf

“Is Croatia the Best-Kept Secret for Zinfandel Lovers?” unsigned blog post from https://croatian.wine/best-kept-zinfandel-secret/

Johnson, Hugh and Jancis Robinson. World Atlas of Wine. 8th edition. Mitchell Beazley, 2019.

Old, Marnie. Wine A Tasting Course: From Grape to Glass. DK, 2021.

Smith, Rhonda. “Zinfandel”, Wine Grape Varieties in California, ed. L. Peter Christensen, Nick K. Dokoozlian, M. Andrew Walker, and James A. Wolpert, University of California, Agriculture & Natural Resources, Publication 3419,  2003.

Sullivan, Charles. Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003

Sweet, Nancy. “Zinfandel: From Croatia to California.” Foundation Plant Services, University of California Davis. https://fps.ucdavis.edu/grapebook/winebook.cfm?chap=Zinfandel

Twain-Peterson, Morgan. “Old Vine Field Blends in California: A review of late 19th century

planting practices in Californian vineyards and their relevance to today’s viticulture. A research paper based upon Bedrock Vineyard, planted in 1888.” Masters of Wine Thesis, Institute of the Masters of Wine, 2017.