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California has made zin in so many disparate styles — sweet, dry, fruity, tannic, pink, inky red — that it's hard for wine lovers to get a bead on the best. That's an image the Association of Zinfandel Advocates & Producers seeks to change.
Three years ago Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill from the California legislature that declared zinfandel to be "California's historic wine," seemingly an innocent enough gesture for a varietal that has long been one of the state's most important money-making food products, with more than 50,000 acres planted.
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The old vines at Seghesio's Home Ranch vineyard
The governor, however, thought it inappropriate to single out just one of the state's many wines for special recognition.
And maybe he, like many, was jaded about the resident grape's reputation. In the years since "zin" was thought to be an indigenous American grape (experts now believe it was brought to the United States from Croatia in the 19th century), its luster has been tarnished by the embarrassing success of sweet, bland low-cost "white zinfandel," which still accounts for almost 6 percent of U.S. wine sales. Instead of thriving, zin's prominence was quickly eclipsed in the 1980s by varietals like cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay.
But the other problem is that California has made zin in so many disparate styles — sweet, dry, fruity, tannic, pink, inky red — that it's hard for wine lovers to get a bead on the best. And that's an image the Association of Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP), a nonprofit educational organization with about 300 winery members, seeks to change.
Any wide-ranging tasting of zins on the market today will still show the wine's diversity, but there are many producers who now create first-class wines from the varietal, sometimes blended with syrah and petite syrah, which add other elements but may detract from zin's essential flavors. If I had to make a general statement about the taste of zin, I'd say it was very fruity, especially in the nose, with intense raspberry and blackberry flavors and a decided hint of pepper.
I find zins are excellent with roast pork and wonderful with not-too-spicy Asian dishes. But be wary of spices like cumin, cardamom, and mustard, which seem to throw off the wine.
Some of my favorites?
Ridge Lytton Springs ($35) Since the 1970s, Paul Draper's benchmark for well-made zinfandel has focused on the grape's essential flavors.
Rosenblum Cellars Vintners Cuvee XXX ($9) — Nicely mellow, with lots of good fruit and balance. Veterinarian Kent Rosenblum makes a wide range of three-dozen wines, but his zins are his best. And for nine bucks a bottle, you can't go wrong.
Bookster ($25) — Bottled by Sherbrooke Cellars in Santa Rosa, this has real zin flavors, with a medium body that makes it ideal for appetizers like charcuterie and cheeses. It's also nice with both salmon and chicken dishes, but it's not meant for T-bone steak.
Seghesio Home Ranch ($36) — Seghesio has been making good wine since 1895, and, while pricey, this is a warm, full-bodied, not overly extracted zin, with real style and complexity. It's a very good argument that zin is neither an aperitif nor an after-dinner cordial.
