No grape is more strongly identified with the history of wine and viticulture in California. The romance of Zinfandel ("Zin" for short) is likely due in no small part to its origins, shrouded as they are—or were until recently—in mystery. For years it was taught almost as a catechism that Zinfandel's first appearance in California was a small plot planted by Hungarian nobleman Agoston Haraszthy at his experimental station in San Diego in 1851. By the 1990s, academics at UC Davis, thanks to DNA "fingerprinting," homed in on Zin's true origins: Croatia's Crljenak Kastelanski grape (which,    More

No grape is more strongly identified with the history of wine and viticulture in California. The romance of Zinfandel ("Zin" for short) is likely due in no small part to its origins, shrouded as they are—or were until recently—in mystery. For years it was taught almost as a catechism that Zinfandel's first appearance in California was a small plot planted by Hungarian nobleman Agoston Haraszthy at his experimental station in San Diego in 1851. By the 1990s, academics at UC Davis, thanks to DNA "fingerprinting," homed in on Zin's true origins: Croatia's Crljenak Kastelanski grape (which, researchers speculate, may have still earlier origins in Albania and Greece).

Some—having known this grape only as the source of a light, sweet, pink concoction known as "White" Zin—are astonished to order a glass of Zinfandel and then have placed before them something red, dry, and full-bodied, redolent of raspberry jam. But this latter incarnation is its original, and best, form, the most successful examples hailing from various parts of Sonoma, and to a lesser extent Napa, the Sierra Foothills, and Paso Robles.   Less