Zinfandel is a variety of black-skinned wine grape. The variety is grown in over 10 percent of California vineyards.
The precise geographic origin of the cultivar remains uncertain, though peer-reviewed studies have identified Montenegro as the best candidate for its origin and dispersal. The grape spread to Italy in the 18th century and to the United States in the mid-19th century. This spread brought with it a variety of regional names for the same grape. In the 1990s, after a three-decade search, DNA analysis revealed an identical genetic identity for several of these regional names. Further DNA research in the first two decades of the 21st century confirmed Kratošija as one of these names. These names include Primitivo in Italy, Kratošija () in Montenegro, and Tribidrag or Crljenak Kaštelanski in Croatia.
The grapes typically produce a robust red wine, although in the United States, a semi-sweet rosé (blush-style) wine called White Zinfandel has six times the sales of the red wine. The grape's high sugar content can be fermented into levels of alcohol exceeding 15 percent.
The taste of the red wine depends on the ripeness of the grapes from which it is made. Red berry fruit flavors like raspberry predominate in wines from cooler areas, whereas blackberry, anise and pepper notes are more common in wines made in warmer areas and in wines made from the earlier-ripening Primitivo clone.
History
Europe (until 19th century) Archaeological evidence indicates that domestication of Vitis vinifera occurred in the Caucasus region around 6000 BCE, and winemaking was discovered shortly after that. Cultivation of the vine subsequently spread to the Mediterranean and surrounding regions.
The earliest known mention of this variety is recorded in the medieval Statute of Budva (Statuta civitatis Buduae), chapter 261, which dates to the period 1426–1442, under the name Cratosia. Budva is a town in Montenegro, where the variety is now known as Kratošija. Another early mention of this grape dates to 1444 under the name Tribidrag, as attested by don Juraj Radičević, priest of the church of Holy Cross in Vodice, in Croatia's Dalmatia region, then part of Venetian Republic. Croatia once had several indigenous varieties related to Zinfandel, which formed the basis of its wine industry in the 19th century.These varieties were almost entirely wiped out, however, by the phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century. Eventually, when Zinfandel's DNA match with Crljenak Kaštelanski, contemporary Croatian name for Tribidrag, was discovered in 2001 in Kaštela, its cultivation experienced rebirth.
However, throughout the 20th century, leading ampelographers from Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, and North Macedonia (the countries of the former Yugoslavia), such as Stojanović (1929), Bulić (1949), Ulićević (1959), Burić (1995), and Maraš (2000), regularly identified Kratošija as an autochthonous Montenegrin variety, noting its likely spread from Montenegro into Dalmatia and Macedonia (present-day North Macedonia). Modern international genetic research also supports that Montenegro holds the most heterogeneous and polymorphic populations of the variety, which indicates long-term cultivation in the area and subsequent dissemination to neighbouring regions. Based on these findings, the scientists concluded that Montenegro represents the best candidate for the origin of the variety.
It is assumed that the grape have been introduced as a distinct clone into Italy's Apulia region in the 18th century, then part of Kingdom of Naples. In the 1790s, Don Francesco Filippo Indellicati, the priest of the church at Gioia del Colle near Bari (across the Adriatic Sea from the Montenegrin town of Bar), selected an early ("primo") ripening plant of the Zagarese variety and planted it in Liponti. This clone ripened at the end of August and became widespread throughout northern Apulia. The first documented use of the term Primitivo appears in Italian governmental publications of the 1870s. The name derives from the terms primativus or primaticcio, which refer to the grape's tendency to ripen earlier than other varieties.
United States east coast (1829–1850) The introduction of Zinfandel to the United States may have occurred through plant material from the Imperial Nursery in Vienna (Austria), which, according to one hypothesis, probably obtained the vines during the rule of the Habsburg monarchy over Dalmatia, after the acquisition of the region from the former Republic of Venice in 1797.Sullivan, Chapter 2 However, it is much more likely that the grapevine originated from the Montenegrin coast. The evidence indicates that Crljenak Kaštelanski was not a widely cultivated variety in Dalmatia in either the 19th or the 20th century, making it unlikely that a cutting could have been taken from such a small population and transported to Austrian nurseries.
George Gibbs, a horticulturist on Long Island, received shipments of grapes from Schönbrunn and elsewhere in Europe between 1820 and 1829. Sullivan suggests that the "Black Zinfardel of Hungary" mentioned by William Robert Prince in A Treatise on the Vine (1830) may have referred to one of Gibbs's 1829 acquisitions. Webster suggests that the name is a modification of the Hungarian tzinifándli (czirifandli), which derives from the German Zierfandler, a white grape (Grüner Sylvaner) from Austria's Thermenregion.
Gibbs visited Boston in 1830, and Samuel Perkins of that city began selling "Zenfendal" soon afterward. In 1830, Gibbs also supplied Prince with "Black St. Peters," variety. Little is known about this vine, except that the Black St. Peters that arrived in California in the 1850s was the same as what became known as Zinfandel by the 1870s.
By 1835 Charles M. Hovey, Boston's leading nurseryman, was recommending "Zinfindal" as a table grape. It was soon widely grown in heated greenhouses to produce table grapes as early as June. The first reference to making wine from "Zinfindal" appears in John Fisk Allen's Practical Treatise in the Culture and Treatment of the Grape Vine (1847). Meanwhile, the fad for hothouse cultivation faded in the 1850s as attention turned to the Concord and other grape varieties that could be grown outdoors in Boston.
California (1850–1933) Prince and other nurserymen, such as Frederick W. Macondray (future son-in-law of Faxon Atherton), joined the California Gold Rush in the 1850s and took Zinfandel with them. Prince's notebook records that the grape dried "perfectly to Raisin" and that he believed his Zinfandel was the same as the "Black Sonora" he found in California. When the vine known as "Black St. Peters" arrived in California, it was initially regarded as a distinct variety, but by the 1870s, it was recognized as the same grape as Zinfandel.
Sacramento nurseryman A.P. Smith listed "Black St. Peter's" among the 24 grape varieties he was propagating in a sales catalog in 1856 and he exhibited "Zeinfindall" at the state fair in 1858. Joseph W. Osborne planted Zinfandel from Macondray at his Oak Knoll vineyard just north of Napa, and his wine was much praised in 1857. Planting of Zinfandel boomed soon after, and by the end of the 19th century, it was the most widespread variety in California.
These Zinfandel old vines are now treasured for the production of premium red wine, but many were ripped up in the 1920s, during the Prohibition years (1920–1933), but not for the obvious reason. Even during the Prohibition, home winemaking remained effectively legal, p2 Chapter 1 and some vineyards embraced the sale of grapes for making wine at home. While Zinfandel grapes proved popular among home winemakers living near the vineyards, it was vulnerable to rot on the long journey to East Coast markets.Pinney p26 The thick-skinned Alicante Bouschet was less susceptible to rot, so this and similar varieties were widely planted for the home winemaking market. In 1931, 3000 cars – about – of Zinfandel grapes were shipped, compared to 6000 cars of Alicante Bouschet.
Rediscovery after Prohibition (1933–present) By 1930, the wine industry had weakened due to the Great Depression and Prohibition.Pinney, p10 Many vineyards that survived by supplying the home market were located in California's Central Valley, a non-optimal environment for growing quality Zinfandel. Thus, the end of Prohibition left a shortage of quality wine grapes, and Zinfandel sank into obscurity as most was blended into undistinguished fortified wines. However, some producers remained interested in making single varietal red wines.
By the middle of the 20th century, the origins of California Zinfandel had been forgotten. In 1972, one British wine writer wrote, "there is a fascinating Californian grape, the zinfandel, said to have come from Hungary, but apparently, a cépage now unknown there." In 1974 and 1981, American wine writers described it as "a California original, grown nowhere else", page 199 and "California's own red grape".
In 1972, Bob Trinchero of the Sutter Home Winery decided to try draining some juice from the vats to impart more tannins and color to his Deaver Vineyard Zinfandel. He vinified this juice as a dry wine, and tried to sell it under the name of Oeil de Perdrix, a Swiss wine made by this saignée method. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insisted on an English translation, so he added "White Zinfandel" to the name, and sold 220 cases. At the time, demand for white wine exceeded the availability of white wine grapes, encouraging other California producers to make "white" wine from red grapes, with minimal skin contact. However, in 1975, Trinchero's wine experienced a stuck fermentation, a problem in which the yeast dies off before all the sugar is converted to alcohol. He put the wine aside for two weeks, tasted it, and decided to sell this pinker, sugary wine. Just as Mateus Rosé had become a huge success in Europe after World War II, this medium sweet White Zinfandel became immensely popular. White Zinfandel still accounts for 9.9% of U.S. wine sales by volume (6.3% by value), six times the sales of red Zinfandel. Most white Zinfandel is made from grapes grown for that purpose in California's Central Valley.
Wine critics considered white Zinfandel to be insipid and uninteresting in the 1970s and 1980s, although modern white Zinfandels have more fruit and less cloying sweetness. Nevertheless, the success of this blush wine saved many old vines in premium areas, which came into their own at the end of the 20th century as red Zinfandel wines came back into fashion. Although the two wines taste dramatically different, both are made from the same (red) grapes but processed differently.
Relationship to Primitivo, Crljenak Kaštelanski, and Kratošija
Zinfandel was long considered "America's vine and wine", but when University of California, Davis (UCD) professor Austin Goheen visited Italy in 1967, he noticed how the wine made from Primitivo reminded him of Zinfandel. Others also made the connection about that time. Primitivo was brought to California in 1968, and ampelographers declared it identical to Zinfandel in 1972. The first wine made from these California vines in 1975 also seemed identical to Zinfandel. In 1975, Ph.D. student Wade Wolfe showed that the two varieties had identical isozyme fingerprints.