Experience the exciting new wave of California Zinfandel with these 18 wines

An opaque, intriguing history

America’s oldest vineyards are a sight to behold.

Marked by gnarled old vines planted in the 1880s, often by Italian immigrants, they provide a palpable sense of history in this so-called New World.

Many of them are field blends, the common practice at the time – a melange that may include Alicante Bouschet, Palomino, Carignan, Mataro, Syrah or Petite Sirah.

The Old Patch at Ridge’s Lytton Springs estate, first planted in 1882, includes 24 different grape varieties. The foundation, though, of these old sites is almost always Zinfandel.

‘The Dickerson vineyard in Napa was planted in the 1920s, and it’s 100% Zinfandel,’ Joel Peterson, ‘the Godfather of Zin’, tells me, while we’re standing in his old-vine Sonoma site, Bedrock vineyard.

‘The very old vineyards, like this one or Old Hill, are a mix of more than 20 varieties.

They were some of the first vineyards planted after phylloxera (both during the 1880s), so they really leaned on an old way of doing things.’

Once thought to be native to the US, Zinfandel’s origins have long been muddied.

For many years, it was believed to be closely related to the Italian variety Primitivo, maybe hailing from Puglia.

However, DNA testing at the University of California, Davis, chased its origins across the Adriatic to the coast of Croatia.

It turns out that not only are California’s long-standing signature variety and Primitivo genetically identical, but both of those grapes are also genetically identical to Dalmatia’s Crljenak Kaštelanski (also known as Tribidrag).

Peaks and valleys

The notion of quality in Zinfandel has also had a tumultuous history, particularly recently. It was the original American fine wine.

Early California bottlings of Zinfandel were sold from trains on the east coast and they made waves at the Paris Exposition of 1889.

Over time, though, its reputation has waned, owing in many ways to the great commercial success of White Zinfandel (the inexpensive, typically not dry ‘blush’-style rosés) and a lingering reputation and perhaps unfair stereotyping as a one-dimensional wine of bombast, high alcohol and little else.

‘Somewhere in the 14%-15% range is where the variety hits its stride,’ Peterson instructs. ‘There it has acid, edge and spice without the unfortunate gloopy, overripe character.’

Through all of that, it remains California’s third most planted variety, behind Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

Joel’s son Morgan Twain-Peterson MW is at the forefront in efforts to preserve many of northern California’s old-vine sites.

His commitment to forward-thinking viticulture, regenerative and organic practices, and a fresh take on the wine his father made famous, are evident in the brilliance and site clarity of his Bedrock wines.

Thanks to folks such as Twain-Peterson, Tegan Passalacqua at Turley and the team at ArnotRoberts, old-vine Zinfandel is resurgent.

While America’s fine wine regions are often left referencing their Old World counterparts, Zinfandel offers something uniquely, historically American, in spite of its Adriatic origins.

Pursehouse's pick of America's most enticing Zinfandel

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