Zin Really Is Its Own Thing
A Wine Author’s Take on Zinfandel
What follows is the Zinfandel entry from the cookbook I co-authored with my good friend and the amazing chef/restauranteur, Jan Jorgensen. “A Cook’s Table” is organized around the most commercially significant grapes/wines, i.e., sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet, etc. There is an introductory essay that does a dive into the prevailing styles of the resultant wines, usually in the Old World/New World dichotomy. Jan’s recipes are keyed to one style or the other, though we’re not so doctrinaire that you can’t cross over or ignore them entirely.
Our Pairing Philosophy
Our food/wine pairing philosophy is, first, relax, because there are very few horrible matches and very few perfect ones, but there is a universe of good to better than good ones in between. Our recommendations, while we believe in them, are merely guides.
Here is the Zin entry. I hope you find it useful.
“Zinfandel might be said to be the least obvious red that we included in the book. While it is among the most widely planted varieties in California—pretty much its only home—and has been since its introduction to the Golden State in the late 19th Century, it has never really attained the acclaim of any of the other reds we’ve included. One might even argue that the oft-despised Merlot is better thought of by consumers and the trade. Maybe we included it because we both came of drinking age in the ‘80s when Zin was transitioning away from its pink wilderness years to its serious side thanks to Ridge, Ravenswood and others who saw in it a grape that could capture a vineyard’s essence just as distinctively as cab, pinot or syrah, maybe even more so.
Many otherwise noble grapes have embarrassing chapters in their histories but it would be hard to argue the extent of tarnish and shame suffered by zinfandel because of the unfortunate “discovery” by Sutter Home’s Bob Trinchero in the ‘70s that “white” Zin could be a thing. Trinchero was no dummy, and whether he created the market or gave the market what it wanted before it knew what it wanted, can be debated. What can’t be is that it was a rip-roaring success. Cue the copycats—and there were legion. They really can’t be blamed for jumping on the pink express. After all, winemaking is a low-margin crapshoot commercially, so their white Zins kept the lights on and allowed them to invest in their more serious cellar and vineyard endeavors. And there’s nothing wrong with that. However, the criticism I will continue to level at all of them is that their claim that this category was merely a temporary stop on a consumer’s path to drier and better wines was disingenuous from the start and has remained so. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time with consumers and I can promise you that the percentage of them who used white Zin—or other wines of that ilk—as a gateway to “real” wines is so de minimis as to not pass the swirl-sniff-taste-spit test.
Getting back to what it is about Zin that matters. Perhaps because we—and I primarily mean Americans—seemed to really embrace wine in the ‘80s when Zins of all shades were becoming ubiquitous, many of us were happy to get serious about wine made with something truly American. In those early days, zin was touted as being as American as apple pie, baseball, jazz and Chevrolet. That proved not to be the case, and theories emanating from our premier grape-growing and winemaking school, University of California, Davis, traced its provenance to Croatia or Southern Italy (where it has long been known as primitivo). Regardless of its genetics, and despite our loss of its national paternity, zinfandel certainly did produce wines in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
Yes, there was the “white” one but other than commercially, that style has never been remotely interesting or really a reflection of what the grape could be. Early on in the Zin renaissance, there were two emerging styles which would unwittingly compete against each other. There was the claret style which suggested a somewhat more refined version more akin to Bordeaux than the other style. That one, which really didn’t have a name, was more rustic—making the primitivo reference make more sense!—sometimes reflecting gnarly vines, elevated mountain vineyards, sometimes field blends with Rhône varieties or higher alcohol as fermentation was stretched out. As real Zins became more and more popular into the ‘90s and early 2000s, it became clear that bigger was indeed better, and the prevailing style was one of rich, palate-coating black-fruited mouthfuls with alcohol levels that would not have shocked Amarone enthusiasts. Personally, I was always partial to the claret style, though I could never quite figure out why anyone would use this British shorthand for Bordeaux as a reference.
Not unsurprisingly, Zins got bigger and bigger, and then also not surprisingly, many consumers got palate fatigue—not to mention stained teeth!—and a form of natural selection took place. Zins now are better than ever, more subtle while remaining truly unique among reds in California. They will never be confused for Beaujolais or Pinot Noir or really anything else—not even Primitivo, in my opinion—but Zin is a great alternative to Cab, Syrah or other full-bodied reds from anywhere in the wine universe.
Zinfandel styles: I’m not sure that the claret style really exists anymore. However, there is usually a discernible difference between truly “old vines” Zins and those that are made with younger fruit. The “old vines” discussion is a complicated one and it still rages. It seems that the consensus is that 50-year-old vines and above—and there are plenty—qualify. The term is not regulated, however, so it’s buyer beware. You’re likely to find that information on back labels. You can expect these Zins to be somewhat lighter in style and often color, maybe skewing a bit more toward red fruit than black with refreshing-enough acidity. Younger vines and those especially from warmer areas, like Lodi and Amador County, will have higher alcohol and lots of extracted fruit though there still should be sufficient acidity to carry that weight. A somewhat more restrained style—though it’s difficult to call Zins “restrained”—can be found in the Dry Creek Valley, Napa Valley and the Russian River Valley.
There are plenty of others. The best strategy is to ask the somm or retailer to recommend either “old vines,” warmer- or cooler-climate candidates, depending on what you’re in the mood for.
These are the styles we will refer to in “What To Drink”.”