Dan Berger's Wine Chronicles: California’s Native Treasure
By Dan Berger
Editor’s note: Napa Valley Features subscribers have been offered a special opportunity from Grgich Hills, one of the historic family-owned wineries in Napa Valley. Make sure to read to the end for details and the phone number to access this exclusive offer.
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Scenario A: About 1995 a good friend and wine-collector who lives in Napa Valley served me and a colleague a “mystery” red wine that he asked us to identify.
My colleague was a wine expert who had evaluated wines at that point for many decades. I was a wine columnist with roughly 20 years of experience. Both of us said the wine probably was a 25-year-old cabernet. After 30 minutes of trying it, I guessed it was 1971 Château Lafite Rothschild. My compatriot guessed 1973 California cabernet. After it had been identified, we enjoyed it with a roast leg of lamb.
Scenario B: About 1998, I poured a 1978 red wine for a friend. He guessed it to be a port from Portugal, a sweet red that would be best after dinner with blue cheese. Later, that’s exactly what we had it with.
It is well known that most fine red wines improve in the bottle over differing time frames. It is also well known that some red wines should not be aged at all. And in most cases the kind of wine determines what life expectancy it has and how it should be treated to be enjoyed at its peak.
Chianti typically is best between four and 15 years of age; a few will last longer. Fine cabernet usually sustains itself well into its second decade as long as the acidity is good enough. Top Beaujolais peak within a decade; even the best should be consumed at 20. French red Burgundy can be long-lived if it has proper structure and cellaring conditions are perfect. California pinot noirs are best at 10 to 15.
So, you may ask, what of zinfandel? How does it age? Since it is so variable, it really is not possible to make a definitive statement about when to drink it at its best. And since it has changed in style so often over the last several decades, where it is today is a mystery. Many are best when they are released.
Zin probably originated in eastern Europe and was later replanted in virtually ideal conditions in the golden state. It has almost always produced wines of mystery that simply do not have much uniformity. But does it age? It once did. Does it still?
In scenario A above, the wine in question was a 1970 Souverain Zinfandel. In the mode of the time, it was made pretty much like a claret with moderate alcohol, probably about 13%. All six of us at the dinner table said it was as close as you can get to claret in style. In the 25 years it had from production to our consuming it, it had taken on lovely maturity because it was stored perfectly. In scenario B the “sweet” wine was a 1978 Ridge Shenandoah Zinfandel with 16% alcohol and some residual sugar. At the time we were tasting it, at age 20, most of us said it would last for another 25 years. (I still have one bottle of that wine left in my cellar.)
As is evident, zinfandel can be a bit of everything. In his 1988 book, “Notes on a California Cellarbook,” author Bob Thompson writes that zinfandel is “the grape variety producing America’s Beaujolais, a Claret, a Port, or a rosé.” He added that the grape produces wines that were never quite as distinctive as those wines, but that it could be made into so many different styles that it was almost impossible to typecast.
And as for its ability to age, once the alcohol gets too high, all bets are off.
Interestingly, zin’s origins once were considered mysterious. We knew that zinfandel was a California original. People said it was grown nowhere else and that it was a variety with a unique nature — with an aroma of strawberries and raspberries, occasionally darker (blackberry or blackstrap molasses), a soft texture (low acid?) and when made with intensity it had an affinity for pizza.
This was a rustic, backwoods kind of wine, intended for consuming with overalls, not tuxedos. Not much like it exists in the Old World.
One of the earliest success stories with zinfandel came in the 1970s. Sutter Home Vineyards obtained zin grapes from the Sierra foothills and produced some elegant, food-oriented lighter red wines that were delightful. I still have bottles from the early 1970s in my cellar.
In the early 1980s, Sutter Home also discovered that zinfandel could be made into a fresh, sprightly “white” wine (blushy, really). It was then a wine with a slightly salmon-y color and a bit of sugar. That gave it a new persona. Before long, wineries all over the state were making white zin and also tasty light-red wines that often had just a hint of jam in their aromas and a taste that was not always totally dry. No one sold zin for very much money; many were half the price of the average cabernet sauvignon. Honestly, zin was not thought of as a “serious” wine; it was for fun, for quaffing, for casual dining, not for somber dinners.
By 1990, zinfandel began to be made bigger and riper than it had been. And it began to develop a broad and passionate following. Each January, thousands would jam into giant San Francisco buildings to sample hundreds of zinfandels from 300-odd zin producers in the annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers tasting, sponsored by an organization dedicated to fostering passions for this grape about which so little once was known.
The ZAP tastings began because of demand. Quickly this became THE event to attend for zin-lovers. Despite frequently cold, rainy conditions, many walked for more than a mile to the venue since the parking lots were inadequate for the throngs. However, almost as quickly as it became popular, it rapidly began to lose steam, partially as a result of the fact that zin had become bigger and bigger, more and more alcoholic, and the flavors all began to taste rather homogenous. Soon zin-lovers lost their fascination for the variety.
I believe one reason this happened was that zin’s regional distinctiveness elements were no longer considered to be an important factor in its makeup. Russian River Valley’s raspberry-strawberry aroma profile was masked by too much intensity. Some Napa zins were made with excessive oak flavors, and port-y aromatics seemed to dominate Lodi wines. In general, zin had become too big, too high in alcohol. Very few producers had the courage to make it with the balance it once offered that allowed it to work with savory foods and to age in the cellar.
I believe that table wines that work with our meals should have between 11% and 13.5% alcohol. When alcohols reach excessive levels, as they did with most zinfandels (15% and up, with some in the 17%+ range), my mouth starts to tire after a single sip. Moreover, zin made into a port lookalike is for after-dinner sipping with cheese, not trying to mate with a slab of beef or lamb. The latter foods work perfectly well with a cabernet or Bordeaux, or even barbera, Chianti or Rioja.
One of the problems that zinfandel faced, especially with newcomers to the wine game in California, was that in order to get the ripe flavors that seemed to be popular with some critics, it was important to harvest the fruit later than normal. However, zin is a late-ripening grape variety that tends to ripen unevenly. The trick is to harvest most vineyards when a few green berries remain on the vines.
However, some people believed that picking any green berries at all could lead to underripe flavors (it won’t), so they picked even later than is optimum. And what they got were raisin-y flavors. The resulting wines were awfully big and concentrated. As zin rose in oomph, it became a parody of itself. Once a rakish, fresh-faced sprightly youth with a quip, it soon became a brooding, boorish oaf with a grunt — about as graceful as a 250-pound ballerina. Instead of gamboling toward the dinner table, it staggered toward the gutter. Instead of instigating jocular conversation, we had a goofy sparring match between the soused.
Oddly, zin had been here once before. In the late 1970s, zinfandel also hit this point of too much bigness. In the early 1980s, wineries were making zins with huge alcohol levels; a few so-called “late-harvest” zins were actually sweet. (I recall that in 1983, a small California winery called Cygnet Cellars succeeded in making a zinfandel that reached 18.3% alcohol without adding anything to it.)
At the time many consumers were so confused about the style of wine they’d be getting (“Is this sweet or dry?”), they eventually gave up on zin altogether. Zin sales plummeted; soon the grape was on the skids. Growers had a hard time selling zinfandel grapes. Were it not for the invention and widespread success of white zinfandel, many old-vine zinfandel vineyards surely would have been ripped out.
Modern winemakers eventually figured out how to market their high-alcohol zins: They began to charge for the alcohol as if it were something people wanted. And a few powerful wine critics agreed. They seemed to like these things and gave them high scores, so for a time the wines actually sold.
(One individual who was outspoken against this high-alcohol style of zinfandel, as well as other high alcohol red wines, was Darrell Corti, the estimable wine merchant from Sacramento, who said he was so opposed to higher-alcohol wines that he would not routinely carry wines that exceeded 14.5% alcohol.)
In the mid-1990s, consumers were being asked to pay more for the higher-alcohol wines — as if this were a mark of distinction. Many winery owners said, “If consumers want port, fine — who am I to water down their passion?” But it did sadden me that a grape once called “America’s Beaujolais” by writer Thompson had been pushed and manipulated into this ogre with a nasty overbite.
Today, high-alcohol zinfandels remain with us, most of them now at 15% alcohol or more. But one additional problem has arisen to cause zin confusion. A considerable amount of a grape called primitivo has recently been planted in California that people now call zinfandel. I believe this is unfortunate because I don’t believe the two grape varieties are identical in terms of the aromas and flavors that I typically get out of true (old-vine?) zinfandel. However, the federal government permits the terms to be used more or less interchangeably.
The new grape was found as a result of scientists seeking to find zinfandel’s mysterious origins. Research had determined that primitivo was a genetic match for zinfandel. In fact, more than one grape was found to have genetic connections to California zinfandel. In the case of primitivo, it was from southern Italy (Puglia). Another was from Croatia. See below.
However, at least in most California vineyards, primitivo ripens more evenly than does zin. It seems to be slightly different from and has little to do with zinfandel in aroma and taste. In primitivo wines I often get very ripe blueberry flavors. Old-vine zinfandel in California has more obvious raspberry/strawberry aromas — unless it is picked extremely late. And it differs from primitivo in its aftertaste. Zin tends to be bright, fruity and “spicy,” unlike primitivo’s dark, more brooding nature. Very few winemakers have ever attempted to make a primitivo that emulates the style of Beaujolais in which zinfandel once was often produced.
However, Mike Grgich “was astounded by the many similarities between zinfandel and a cultivar called plavac mali (plah-vatz mah-lee), a grape variety native to his Croatian homeland. In 2000, Grgich’s contributions to the work of geneticists Carole Meredith and professors in Croatia led to an amazing discovery. Zinfandel’s DNA matches crljenak kaštelanski.”
The quoted section above comes from the back label of Grgich Hills’ 2020 Crljenak Kaštelanski. I believe that crljenak kaštelanski (which appears to be related to plavac mali) is closer to zinfandel in style than is primitivo. Grgich planted crljenak kaštelanski in his Napa Valley estate vineyard and began to make a small amount of this wine. Very little crljenak is planted in California, but the 2020 Grgich wine is marked by a black-pepper aroma along with both red and black berry fruits.
Even though California has already experienced two different periods during which excessive alcohol levels, unwarranted sweetness and overwhelming concentration all but destroyed zinfandel’s sales, the majority of zins still being produced today continue to hew to that relatively injudicious style of wine. History teaches us that such a style is inappropriate not only because the wines are not very fruity in the traditional sense (the “fruit” is raisins) but also because they simply do not age well.
Not that there aren’t examples around that can and do — and also avoid zin’s excesses. Perhaps the best example in the state annually can be found at John Williams’ excellent Frog’s Leap Winery in Rutherford, where sane alcohol levels (almost always below 14%) mark the zinfandels from year to year. In such a mode, zin can take on graceful fruit and display that charm that Williams often builds into his wines. And the wines age beautifully. The style is historic, and adding to that is the fact that Williams’ son, Rory, is involved in all blending decisions.
The most recent release of Frog’s Leap Zinfandel (the 2021, $45) is 81% zinfandel, 10% petite sirah and 9% carignane. It has excellent acidity, only 13.6% alcohol, and Williams’ typical claret-y elegance. From his website:
“We are big believers in Zinfandel, and we think you should be, too. Delicious, exuberant fruity aromas belie a sophistication to our wine that pushes the boundaries of what it means to be serious Zinfandel, and lay the foundation for the unexpected—a Zin that can age.
“I have always tried to push our style in the direction of freshness, balance and elegance, which I believe yields a wine that is both more enjoyable and better reflective of the beautiful vineyards in which we grow our grapes. We farm our Zinfandel in St. Helena, just five miles north of our home in Rutherford, with the vast majority coming from just two vineyards, White Barn and Molinari, both of which sit in the gravel soils of the large alluvial fan that defines this appellation. Zinfandel thrives in this kind of soil; unfortunately for Zinfandel, Cabernet also does well in this soil, and Zin is a vanishing quantity in Napa, despite its seeming ubiquity in the rest of California.
“However, we continue to farm this heritage grape in the belief that there is no better grounding for the elegant style of Zin that we love.”
Considering that the claret style of zinfandel is so difficult to obtain, it is easy to see why the Frog’s Leap example represents a historic touchstone at a time when zinfandel continues walking in the direction of perdition.
Wine Discovery:
2020 Grgich Hills Crljenak Kaštelanski, Napa Valley, “Miljenko’s Selection” ($85) — The aroma of this strikingly dark wine displays the exotic black-pepper and licorice components that once were seen almost exclusively in cold-climate zinfandels. This often was evident in zins from colder areas of the Russian River Valley. (Unfortunately, much of the Russian River Valley’s zinfandel acreage has been converted to pinot noir in the last 20 years, and the amount of zinfandel still growing in that Sonoma County district is fast dwindling.) This Grgich wine has spice characteristics that remind me distinctly of zinfandel, and although it is relatively concentrated, the flavors are so exotic that you realize that there is some zinfandel-ness going on here. The wine was made with sufficient acidity to allow it to age beautifully, and although the tannins are relatively substantial, there is such good fruit that it will be best in at least six more years and could go a lot longer.
It is pricey, to be sure, but absolutely should be on the radar of zinfandel-lovers. And the time to buy it is now. Very little of this wine was produced. After it was released, the winery learned from the federal government (Trade and Tax Bureau) that it was not accepting the winery’s submitted label for approval based on the fact that crljenak kaštelanski was not a TTB-approved grape variety. Because the wine is for sale exclusively in California, winery president Violet Grgich removed the wine from the winery’s website. However, she told me on Sunday that she will permit sales of this wine to Napa Valley Features readers in California who call the winery at 707-963-2784 and say they read about it in Napa Valley Features.
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Dan Berger has been writing about wine since 1975.
Great article. About twenty five years ago, a good friend pulled out seven or eight older Cabs from his cellar, mostly from the ‘70’s with a mystery wine. Our dinner group tasted them blind and all were wonderful. The winner was a 1964 Louis Martini Zinfandel. What a nice surprise. It was much like a Claret as you described in the fine article.
Please keep these coming!
How could you have passed over the zinfandels of The Robert Biale Vineyard? Made by vineyard and its unique terroir. What about the other zinfandel vintners who started ZAP?