A Wine Country Whodunit

Zinfandel fans love a good detective story. After all, Zinfandel has long been known as the Mystery Grape because its true Old World origin remains unclear.

For all anyone really knows, California’s signature red wine grape may have been delivered by aliens from outer space. Actually, geneticist Carole Meredith has traced it back to Eastern Europe. But where it was before that remains enigmatic.

So, too, every old Zinfandel vineyard has its own mysteries. Who originally planted it, and when? And where did the grower get the scions (cuttings) for propagation? Is it the real thing, Original Zin from the 19th century, with those little flavor-packed grapes that yield magical wine? Or is it some well-disguised permutation of the inferior commercial clones that infiltrated during the 1970s?

Those questions are at the heart of Zinfandel’s future. And that’s why Dry Creek Valley, with the densest concentration of old Zin vineyards in the world, is particularly rich in viticultural whodunits.

Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel is one of the world’s most distinctive viticultural entities, which makes Dry Creek Valley American Viticultural Area one of the best-defined.

Along with Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Carneros Pinot Noir, Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel is one of the pillars of California wine. And considering that Zinfandel is the essential Californian grape variety, Dry Creek Valley may be considered the heartland of the state’s viticultural heritage.

For a taste of this unique legacy--heck, for a drink of it--try Zins like 1997 Dry Creek Vineyard “Heritage Clone”; 1995 Mazzocco “Saini-Cuneo”; 1997 Quivira “Reserve”; 1997 Raffanelli; 1997 Forchini “Papa Nono”; 1998 Amphora Mounts; 1998 Unti “Old Clone”; 1996 Nalle; 1998 Old World Winery “Pena Creek”; 1998 Dashe; 1997 Preston of Dry Creek “Old Vine, Old Clone”; and 1998 Seghesio “Cortina”. (Those are just some of the beauties I’ve tasted recently; for a more comprehensive view, hie thee to the tasting bar at Cafe Zin in Healdsburg.)

The problem with old Zinfandel vineyards is that they, like all other living things, don’t get any younger. Their fruit becomes increasingly concentrated and complex as the vines age, but at the same time their yield steadily reduces until even the most dedicated grower has to face the law of diminishing returns and replant.

And with every replanting, a certain amount of genetic information--some vital part of the Dry Creek Valley mix--is lost forever. In the last few years, various efforts have been mounted to save as much of the old-vine DNA as possible. One notable example is the establishment of a Heritage Block of old-vine field selections--a kind of rudimentary Missing Vines Bureau--by James Wolpert, a UC Davis professor, in conjunction with the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers organization.

Even so, it’s inevitable that only a fraction of the precious Zinfandel gene pool will be preserved. Which is where the detective work comes in. With the surviving pre-Prohibition vineyards on their way out and with only limited space available for new plantings, it becomes increasingly important to locate genuine perpetrators in the crowd of usual suspects.

An important case was cracked recently by Dry Creek Valley grower Duff Bevill. His astute sleuthing over the span of a decade was responsible for rescuing one old-time Zinfandel clone from the brink of obscurity and restoring it to the local mix.

He picked up the trail in the late ‘80s, almost by accident. A friend, Richard Rued, had a young vineyard from an old clone that had been taken from vines in a nearly abandoned pre-Prohibition vineyard near Geyserville called the Mazzoni Ranch.

Phyllis Zouzounis, Mazzocco Vineyards winemaker, made a Zin from those young vines in 1989. Zouzounis was impressed by the wine’s quality even while it was fermenting--even though the vines were young, the wines were unexpectedly rich and powerful, showing real old-time Zinfandel character. Knowing of Bevill’s interest in the old Zin clones, she insisted that he try it.

“Phyllis said the wine was delicious, and she wanted me to taste it,” Bevill said. “We tasted it together and agreed that it was really good, with beautiful color and wonderful Zinfandel flavors. So I went to take a look at the vineyard. It was trellised, not head-trained in the old style, and it was on AXR roots. That was two strikes against it. But it still made delicious Zin, even though the vines were only 4 years old and ’89 wasn’t the best vintage.”

In December of that year Bevill began researching the old vineyard’s history. The Mazzoni family wasn’t able to tell him much except that the vines had been on the property when they bought it in 1942.

Bevill expanded his investigation to the neighbors, seeking out old-timers and pumping them for information. “One old guy told me he remembered picking grapes there when he was a kid,” Bevill recalled, “I figured out that he would have been about 10 years old in the 1930s.”

But how long before that had the vines been planted? Now fully engaged, Bevill went to the Sonoma County tax assessor’s office and did a title search on the property. The earliest deed he found was from 1921, when the ranch was purchased by a man who later died and left it to his wife, who had eventually sold the property to the Mazzoni family.

“I did some more research and finally located some of her heirs in Windsor and Healdsburg,” said Bevill. “But when I called them, they hung up on me.”

Going back to the old-time neighbors, he found that although some of them recalled the vineyard, nobody remembered that family actually living on the property. The old clone’s trail was cold, and that’s where he left it.

“I ran into a dead-end street and was burned out,” he said. “So the best I can figure is that the vines were in the ground in the early ‘20s. And now the vineyard’s gone.”

While Bevill was pursuing leads, the Mazzoni family sold the property to a large winery. The old vines were torn out and burned to make way for Cabernet Sauvignon. The only evidence that they’d ever existed was Richard Rued’s small block of young vines, from which Phyllis Zouzounis had gotten the fruit for the momentous ’89 Zin that opened this case.

But that proved to be enough. In his capacity as a vineyard consultant, Bevill began distributing the Mazzoni budwood from Rued’s vineyard to other growers.

Recently Vinifera Nursery Inc., a major supplier of budwood to the vineyard industry, selected scions from Bevill’s plantings for commercial propagation. The future of the “Bevill-Mazzoni Clone” was assured.

And, notes Bevill, “Mike Mazzoni is now taking budwood from my vineyards for his own new planting. So it’s come full circle.”

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Smith is writer-at-large for Wine & Spirits Magazine.