More Demand for Zinfandel Grapes Triggers Cheating

The story is an old one and is told throughout Northern California’s wine country areas. Most old-timers have heard it, in one form or another. It used to illicit laughs. Now it merely causes them to shrug in recognition:

It is late of a September day. A truck laden to the top with wine grapes drives up the dusty driveway of a winery and the wine maker comes out.

The driver hops down out of the cab of the truck and says, “Need any grapes?”

“What kind ya got?” asks the wine maker.

The driver replies, “What kind you need?”

In the last few years, if the grapes looked red, the driver would reply “Zinfandel.” And rarely would the wine maker complain.

The demand for White Zinfandel by the yuppie set has been a phenomenon no one could have calculated. Even Bob Trinchero, president of Sutter Home Winery, the world leader in production of this pop phenomenon, is still surprised by how fast the variety has caught on, and how strongly.

Less Than the Legal Limit

So strongly, in fact, that there is a suspicion by some people that there’s White Zinfandel out there that isn’t legally entitled to carry that name. The suspicion is that some of this wine is less than the legal limit of Zinfandel.

Under the law, White Zinfandel is a varietal designation, meaning that each bottle must contain at least 75% of the stated variety. One federal investigator privately tells wine makers, though, that he suspects there’s a lot of mislabeled White Zinfandel on the market--wine that may have in it some Zinfandel, but a major portion of the wine is made up of other, much less expensive--and more widely available--grapes.

Now the state is getting into the act.

In a letter dated June 1, the California Department of Food and Agriculture is warning growers it smells a rat, too.

“It has been brought to (our) attention . . . that the practice of misrepresenting varieties of grapes delivered to wineries as ‘Zinfandel’ continues to be a problem,” said the start of a letter to some growers.

Included with the letter was a sheet that had in large type, “WARNING! Stating a false variety on loads of grapes is unlawful. Conviction can result in $1,000 fine and/or 6 months in jail, and/or civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day or violation.”

‘Aware of Possible Problems’

A spokesman for the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said his agency was “aware of possible problems in the last two years and there is a strong push on toward doing more product integrity inspections.” Such inspections are done at harvest time and inspectors look at grapes being delivered and the weigh tags for such loads of grapes to see if they match.

The BATF also conducts grape identification courses for its agents so it can tell a cluster of Zinfandel grapes from other varieties.

Trinchero, whose Sutter Home Winery produced 2.1 million cases of White Zinfandel last year, says any allegations of “excessive blending” of non-Zinfandel grapes into White Zinfandel may have resulted from competing wineries’ jealousy.

“When there’s an incentive, there’s going to be some people who cheat,” he said. “And there are some vintners who feel Sutter Home or some of these other guys have gotta be cheating somehow.

“But it would be the dumbest thing in the world for me to be doing something like that. I could lose my license and be out of business.” He added that he had four BATF inspections during last year’s harvest, “and one of them was at 2 o’clock in the morning.” He passed all of them.

Industry analyst Jon Fredrikson of San Francisco agreed that little if any overt cheating was going on at wineries: “The threat of losing your license, and the forms you have to fill out, and the number of inspectors running around--why, that’s enough to put the fear of God into any White Zin producer.”

Trinchero also said he polices the situation himself. “We have six guys out there who track the grapes back to their source, to make sure of what we’re getting.”

One Explanation

Trinchero thinks there’s an explanation for the plethora of Zinfandel available recently.

“When Zin was selling for $150 a ton, it was often sold only as ‘red grapes.’ It had no importance as a varietal, it was the jug red wine back then so it was never reported as Zinfandel. But when it became short, the price went up, and so growers started labeling it what it was--Zinfandel.”

Also, Trinchero noted that there has been a huge increase in the amount of Zinfandel being grown without a corresponding increase in Zinfandel acreage. “My growers have reported to me 50% to 100% more grapes, but that’s because they’re overcropping (growing too many grapes per vine). They’re loading the vines down,” but in many cases, such practices actually make a better White Zinfandel, he said.

The higher production is a boon to most growers. In 1984, for example, the statewide average price paid for a ton of Zinfandel grapes was $253. Average production from an acre of Zinfandel grapes was rarely more than four tons, so gross return to a grower was about $1,000 per acre--barely enough to pay farming costs.

Last year, the statewide average was $480 per ton of Zinfandel and average yield per acre was six tons. Gross return on an acre was therefore $2,900, almost three times what it was in years past.

Said industry analyst Fredrikson, “Zin is planted throughout the state, and prices are up all over the place. So this has kept some guys afloat who might have gone out of business.”

It also has kept a lot of Zinfandel grapes in the ground that might have been torn out in favor of other varieties.

Moreover, the demand for Zinfandel has made some older plantings of Carignane, Charbono, Early Burgundy and other obscure varieties usable, too, say some White Zinfandel producers. Here’s why:

The ‘Field Blend’

Many years ago, Italian wine makers used to plant vineyards with a variety of red wine grapes, sometimes interplanting six or eight varieties side by side, the so-called “field blend.” The idea was to make a hearty, gutsy Italian-type red wine. These vineyards usually had a good portion of Zinfandel growing in them.

Today, with Zinfandel in great demand, some of these older vineyards are being harvested and all the grapes marked simply Zinfandel.

One wine maker, in confidence, said, “Hey, if I see a load of grapes coming to the crusher and there’s Zinfandel on top, what do you want me to do? Go digging into that load down to the bottom, to see if the rest is Zinfandel?” He said he takes the grower’s word for it that the whole load is Zinfandel.

“Besides, I’ve got no (legal) exposure. I have a bill from the grower that says I bought Zinfandel.” Sure, he said, he wants real Zinfandel, but with the present shortage of the variety, he said he’s happy to take sound, ripe grapes that make good “white Zinfandel” even if there is little actual Zinfandel in the wine.

Trinchero, who has more sources of real Zinfandel than most (he’s been making Zinfandel since the 1960s), admitted last week that $480 a ton as a statewide average for the variety was crazy, but he added, “It’s going up as we speak. Why, I’m paying $750 a ton right now, and so is Gallo. And that’s in the central (San Joaquin) valley.”

About 7.9 million cases of White Zinfandel were made in 1987. About 143,300 tons of Zinfandel grapes were crushed. That means that if every case of Zinfandel, red and white, were diluted up to the legal maximum of 25% something else, a total of 13.5 million cases of wine marked Zinfandel, red or white, were produced.

Fredrikson estimates that 10+ million cases of White Zinfandel will be produced this year.

Making sure the White Zinfandel has at least 75% Zinfandel are the BATF and the state department of Food and Agriculture. Said a BATF spokesman, “We trace it from the receipt records that the winery has for grapes through the records of the wine. We make a yearly inspection for product integrity,” and he admitted that such inspections are far more rigorous at producers who make a White Zinfandel than at wineries that don’t.

“We do go after the more expensive product to make sure it isn’t stretched,” he said. “You will go into a winery and select certain varieties” to investigate.

Wine of the Week: 1987 Vega Vineyards Johannisberg Riesling Special Selection ($8)--Controversy reigned on one panel at the San Francisco Fair and Exposition wine competition last month. Three judges felt this dessert wine was simple and lacked distinction. I argued that the wine deserved a gold medal because of what I perceived to be a delicate Germanic aroma--kind of a mineral water and spice--and great balance despite 13.5% residual sugar. In the end, the wine won no medal, the other judges’ “no award” won over my vote for a gold. You decide: gold or no award?