Lawmaker Presses Case for Zinfandel

It’s not enough for California to have a state bird (valley quail), tree (redwood), flower (golden poppy), reptile (desert tortoise) and even dance (West Coast swing). What the Golden State really needs is an official wine, says state Sen. Carole Migden, and the only wine that fills the bill is zinfandel.

“Zinfandel is the quintessential California wine,” the San Francisco Democrat said last week when she introduced legislation that would bestow that status on the wine zippily known as “zin.” Zinfandels “go with just about any food” and thus are suited to represent a state with such a rich diversity of cuisines and cultures, she added.

Her proposal, unveiled Thursday, has uncorked a barrelful of sentiment, both pro and con, among wine enthusiasts, growers and winemakers. Many are delighted by the attempt to showcase a wine that has a rich history in the state. Others say lawmakers would be foolish to single out one varietal in a state that does so many so well.

Makers of cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot “are not going to be real happy about it, and I think that’s the main problem here,” said Carole Meredith, professor emeritus at UC Davis who has studied zinfandel’s DNA. “I don’t think there’s a tremendous amount of support in the grape and wine industry for this.”

Others disagreed. Zinfandel’s ample variety makes it a good choice, said Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone, a St. Helena winery that produces chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and riesling -- but no zinfandel -- because it “provides a little something for everybody.”

As the 2004 film “Sideways” demonstrated, Californians have strong feelings about their wines. In that boozy buddy picture, set in Santa Barbara County, merlot got a bad rap while pinot noir received a huge boost. In fact, retailers say, zinfandel sales have been eclipsed of late by pinot noir, partly because of the “Sideways” effect.

Migden’s proposal has California’s more than $45-billion wine industry puzzling over who might have been behind the push for zinfandel.

“I suspect it’s some Sonoma guys,” said Charles Sullivan, a wine historian and the author of the 2003 book “Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine.” “Somebody got to her.”

The obvious choice, many industry observers speculate, would have been the nonprofit Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, based in Rough and Ready, Calif., northwest of Sacramento. The organization professed ignorance in a statement released Friday.

“We were totally surprised and can’t help but be delighted,” Julie Johnson, the zinfandel group’s president and owner of Tres Sabores Winery in Rutherford, said in the statement. The association said it had not yet taken a position on Migden’s legislation.

For more than a century, zinfandel’s origins were shrouded in mystery. Unlike every other fine wine grape in California, zin had no known European homeland. Cabernet came from Bordeaux, while chardonnay and pinot noir arrived from Burgundy. “But for all anyone knew, zinfandel came from outer space,” wine writer Rod Smith wrote in The Times in 2002.

Recent research, largely by Sullivan, revealed that the first “Zinfendal” vine appeared in a Long Island, N.Y., nursery in the 1820s. Sullivan speculates that it came from the gardens of the Austrian imperial palace in Vienna, which in the 18th century had vines from every part of the empire, including Croatia. A sea captain and amateur horticulturist brought the vine west soon after California became a state in 1850, and Sullivan concludes that it showed up in the Sonoma Valley in 1859. Sullivan dispels the widely cited suggestion that a Hungarian nobleman, Count Agoston Haraszthy, brought zin to California in 1859.

Through the 1860s, zinfandel was just another useful grape, Sullivan said. In the late 1870s, growers began to recognize zin’s versatility and pushed it to the forefront of California’s first wine boom. Zin became the state’s most widely planted grape, covering nearly 20,000 acres by 1890. Zinfandel Advocates & Producers said it now ranks second in red wine grape acreage, behind cabernet sauvignon.

According to the zinfandel group, wine historians say the name “zinfandel” was first used to describe the grape as early as 1832, establishing a unique identity for the varietal in this country.

Ultimately, zin came to symbolize California wine. UC Davis’ Department of Viticulture and Enology developed the term “heritage grape” for zinfandel research vineyards in Oakville and the Sierra foothills, which Zinfandel Advocates & Producers supports.

At their best, aficionados say, red zinfandels have a very fruity, raspberry-like aroma and a “jammy” quality. Red zinfandels pack a punch, with alcohol content near 16%. (The hugely popular white zinfandel, made from the same red grape, is pink and slightly sweet.)

“If you’re just tasting [red] zinfandels, they’ll stick out as being extraordinarily more concentrated,” said Gary Fishman, domestic wine buyer for Wally’s Wine and Spirits on Westwood Boulevard. “When you go to sit down and have a meal with it, you’re exhausted. It’s like drinking hard liquor.”

Weekend shoppers at Wally’s were mixed in their views of Migden’s proposed legislation.

“It sounds like gobbledygook,” said Neal Kaufman, who keeps about 35 cases of wine in his Westwood house. “Is there a good socioeconomic reason to do it?”

Edward Muldoon of Manhattan Beach said he could understand why zinfandel would be promoted, although he personally is not a big fan. “My favorite -- and it sounds like a cliche -- is pinot noir,” he said.

Weighing in for the Napa Valley Grapegrowers Assn., an influential group of 350 vineyard owners, was Eric Titus, the group’s president and owner of Titus Vineyards in St. Helena. “As a trade and advocate organization, we can’t really single out one” varietal, he said, noting that he grows zinfandel grapes. “Here in Napa Valley, cabernet is the driver.”

If the legislation passed, however, he said he would not complain. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”