I don’t think I’ve devoted an entire blog posting to Zinfandel, but I did a Zin flight yesterday that put me in touch with my inner Zinman, which is to say, it resurrected years of thoughts about this frustrating, inconsistent, loveable, problematic, unique and sometimes great variety of wine.

I can’t recall the first Zinfandel I ever drank, but the first I ever took a note on was Wine and the People’s 1976 bottling from Sonoma County. I opened it at the age of seven (no, not when I was seven, when the wine was seven). It had cost me all of $10 when I bought it, in 1979. I liked it a whole lot. The alcohol was 13.5%, and it was absolutely dry.

In the 1980s, Zinfandel was undergoing review by the then famous critics, who were declaring that it was actually a great wine, California’s only authentic variety. I took them at their word. But by the time I started to actually review wines, I was over my Zinfatuation. Too often the wines were overripe and pruney, with high alcohol and residual sugar. This problem was particularly acute in the Sierra Foothills and in certain Sonoma bottlings. When Paso Robles Zinfandel began to appear on the scene, in the 1990s, it too joined the parade of awkward, sweet freaks.

I always thought Napa Valley produces the most claret-like Zins, that being a compliment, although if you were a purist, you could object that they were too elegantly tailored. They were made to resemble Cabernet Sauvignon, and did, but didn’t reflect Zinfandel’s truest nature, which is or should be rustic, like a country cousin who likes Wayne Newton, wipes his nose in the napkin at the table and, all too legitimately, makes fun of citified ways. This high estimation of Napa in my mind is, however, a construct of the sort wine reviewers often form without checking the facts. For, if I revert to my database at Wine Enthusiast, I see that I scored 24 Sonoma Zinfandels higher over the years than anything from Napa Valley (which in this case was Rubicon’s 2007 Edizione Pennino Zinfandel, from Rutherford). The reason why I think of Sonoma Zinfandel being not as high as Napa Zinfandel is because, on average, there are far more bad Sonoma Zins than from Napa. But that’s mainly because there are waaay more Zins from Sonoma than Napa, which distorts one’s county-wide perception.

It’s not likely I would ever buy a Zinfandel, were I a normal wine consumer. I can’t think why I would. That’s my guilty secret. When I’m of split mind regarding Zinfandel, I always suggest pairing with barbecue. If you understand my reviews you know this is a code word that means, basically, “This isn’t the greatest wine ever, and in fact it’s a little rustic. But then again, if you’re grilling burgers, you’re not particularly fussy.” Such wines have their place in our lives. But Zinfandel for me is a little too country cousin. I actually have such cousins, and I like seeing them every few years. But please, not more than that.

The highest score I ever gave a Zinfandel was 96 points, which was for Hartford Court’s 2007 Highwire Zin, from Russian River Valley. It cost $55. That’s a lot of money to pay for a Zin, and I wouldn’t. Of those other 24 Sonoma Zins I’ve given high scores to over the years, the cheapest was Joseph Swan’s 2003 Lone Redwood Ranch, which back in 2007 when it was released cost $25. That was an anomaly. In yesterday’s tasting that I just referred to, Ravenswood really starred. It is gratifying that Constellation, which owns Ravenswood, so far has kept quality high; we’ll have to see if that remains the case. On the other hand, I have to admit to being disappointed by the Ridges, which have been too alcoholic and sweet. I hope that’s just a lapse on their part, rather than a permanent degradation of the wines.

All this makes me yearn for that Wine and The People of olden days. I wish I could retaste it now and see if I thought as highly of it as I did in 1983. Would I find a 13.5% Zinfandel green and leafy? Back then I called it “fruity and elegant” and I don’t believe my palate has changed that much over the years. How they managed to get a Zinfandel that low in alcohol that good, I don’t know.

Zinfandel has had more face lifts over the years than Joan Rivers. When I first stumbled onto the wine scene, in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s, Zin was enormously popular. This was partly because it was the only varietal that was thought to be indigenous to California, thereby pleasing the patriots, and also because the American critics of the time (and there weren’t many) loved it. Here are Charlie Olken, Norm Roby and Earl Singer on Zinfandel from their 1980 The Connoisseur’s Handbook of California Wines: “…the most versatile wine grape grown in California…” “full-bodied, intensely flavorful wines…” “…vigorous, berrylike, sometimes spicy…”. Critical darlings included Zins from Burgess, Caymus, Clos du Val and Buehler; Bob Thompson, the dean of California wine writers, described Ridge’s Geyserville Zin as “claret-like,” the greatest compliment a critic could bestow upon a non-Bordeaux red wine that wasn’t Pinot Noir. Even Hugh Johnson said, in 1977, that Zin was “Capable of ageing [sic] to great quality.”

But then, in the 1980s, Zinfandel seemed to drop out of the spotlight. Cabernet Sauvignon was all the rage, followed by Merlot. Since then, every few years Zinfandel makes a comeback (courtesy of content-addicted wine writers, who are always looking to anoint what’s in and what’s out), but for every comeback, there follows a demotion.

The first Zinfandel I took notes on was a 1976 from Wine and the People, which I wrote about a year ago. I’ve drank a lot of Zinfandel since then, although mostly for tasting purposes. I can’t remember the last time I opened a bottle for pure pleasure, although there must have been occasions. That’s perhaps a little unfair to Zinfandel. Made right, it’s a fine wine. But I think the title of Jon Bonné‘s blog last week, Is Zinfandel a Serious Wine?, suggests some of the difficulties Zinfandel faces. Jon doesn’t directly answer his own question, instead taking a repertorial approach. “[I]t’s nearly impossible to find Zin-focused conversations among what we’ll call wine influencers,” he writes. That is clearly true. To the extent I’m an influencer (and so is Jon), I cannot recall a time in years when I shot the breeze with my fellow writers or critics about Zinfandel.

We have to ask, though, what “a serious wine” means. I think we can all agree that Cabernet, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are serious wines. If we broaden our scope beyond California, we can add other varieties to the list (Riesling, Syrah, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, etc.). Why do we describe some varieties as “serious” while others aren’t? Jon writes “Dolcetto, for instance, will never be discussed as a major, influential wine,” and surely no one will disagree with that. But I think we have to look at more psychological aspects, or even philosophical ones, when it comes to how we determine if something is “serious” or “frivolous.”

Obviously, no grape variety or wine is anything in itself, other than what it is. But then along come we humans, ascribing all kinds of qualities to it, and we end up with varietal hierarchies, the vinous equivalent of royalty and peasantry. I’ve always been fascinated by the importance of authority in shaping how the broad masses think. Although I’m not an elitist, I do believe that many wine drinkers will readily assume a particular wine is great simply because a wine critic says so. That’s sad, albeit understandable, given the myths that have surrounded wine for thousands of years, not to mention the baffling complexity of having to decide amongst thousands of brands. But could it be that Zinfandel is not considered a “serious wine” because the majority of critics have so stated?

I think this is true. Perform a thought experiment. If, suddenly, the leading critics suddenly declared that Zinfandel was a very great wine (always with the proviso, applicable to every other variety, that it must be made right), don’t you think that the public would eventually come to the same conclusion? This is because people are so unsure of themselves, they’ll believe whatever the tastemakers tell them. Why do you think the Chinese are paying a zillion dollars for Lafite? It’s not because they like the way it tastes, that’s for sure. It’s the same reason why the collectors in this country started coveting Guigal’s Côtes-Rôties in the 1980s and 1990s, when they were told to do so. I have had those wines and, to be perfectly honest, they’re not all that different from a good California Petite Sirah. But Petite Sirah isn’t considered “a serious wine” because not enough critical consensus has built up that it is.

So I’m not ready to say that Zinfandel is or isn’t serious. In this year of 2011, I’m going to pay it more attention, give it another look-see. I’m not talking about those monstrous high alcohol bruisers that also contain residual sugar. I’m not talking about unevenly ripened Zins, whose berry flavors are bracketed by raisins and vegetables. I’m talking about the kind of Zinfandels I’ve given high scores to lately: De Loach, Deerfield, Zichichi, V. Sattui, Dry Creek, Seghesio, Rubicon, Tres Vinicultores, Dutcher Crossing, Magistrate. Funny how so many of them are from Dry Creek Valley. No coincidence, that; in Dry Creek, the vines, often very old, are happiest.

As most of you know, I’m very anti-snob when it comes to wine. I champion everything, whether it’s Two Buck Chuck or the most expensive rarity, because there’s a place for everything in our complicated world. But, let’s face it, there are standards. All wines are not created equal. And one wine that is not equal is white Zinfandel.

Now, I don’t want to be misinterpreted here. Anybody who likes white Zinfandel has a perfect right. Some wonderful wineries (Gallo, Woodbridge, Sutter Home) make respectable white Zins, and more power to them. I’ve given my share of Best Buys to white Zin in Wine Enthusiast, and if you handed me a glass at a party, I’d drink it with whatever food was around.

But white Zinfandel cannot be considered a great wine. It’s not meant to be a great wine. Even its manufacturers concede that. They usually use Zinfandel grapes from the Central Valley (which is why white Zin typically has a “California” appellation) that may be cut with other, cheaper varieties. They use press juice. They leave a little residual sugar in, to satisfy Americans’ sweet tooth. It generally costs less than $10, hardly the province of great wine.

No, white Zinfandel is a wine for people who don’t understand fine wine, don’t care to, and don’t need to. I’m not putting them down. I’m just saying that there is such a thing as quality in wine, it objectively exists, and white Zinfandel is not terribly high on the quality scale.

Which brings us to this post by Tim Hanni MW, Wine Industry Owes Sweet Wine Drinkers a Huge Apology.

Tim says he paired up with a Cornell associate professor to conduct a consumer study. They found that it’s not lack of sophistication that makes people prefer sweet white Zinfandel to better wines. No, it’s “physiological differences in human sensory anatomy.” People who like white Zin are born that way. That’s why the “wine industry owes sweet wine drinkers a huge apology.” We’ve told them for years that they’re functionally uneducated about fine wine, when it turns out that all we’re doing is insulting them for the way Nature made them. This is a form of discrimination whose not-so-subliminal message to white Zin lovers is that they’re inferior — a message that “alienat[es] a large segment of consumers…”.

Whoa. We’re treading on a culturally sensitive area. You’re not supposed to diss anybody’s choices anymore, because if you do, you’re being insensitive. I might feel that, living as I do in a dense urban neighborhood, it’s incumbent on me to be quiet and not antagonize my neighbors with loud noise, especially at night. But if somebody wants to drive down the street at 2 a.m. blasting a CD at 100 decibels, hey, who am I to criticize? That’s their right, isn’t it?

Actually, no. A person who drives through a crowded neighborhood playing loud music at any time is a lout who wasn’t raised right. I could say the same about a range of social misbehaviors, but you get the point. There are, as I said, standards. There have to be, or society crumbles. And wine also has its standards.

The truth is, just because lots of people like something doesn’t make it right. Many people may prefer white Zinfandel over a dry wine, but a well made dry wine is objectively better than a sweet white Zinfandel. Nor do I believe people are born with a predisposition to liking sweeter wines, as Hanni’s study claims. I think the wine industry has had it right for the last 50 years; the wine learning curve goes like this: start with sweet white or pink wines, advance to drier whites, then to lighter reds, then to dry, fuller-bodied reds. (And, my whiskey friends would add, “Then go on to Scotch and bourbon.”)

So when Hanni quotes a wine marketer as saying, “It will require some major changes in attitudes, wine education and the correction of worn-out stereotypes and myths” to get over our beliefs about white Zinfandel drinkers, I disagree. I don’t think it’s a stereotype that white Zin drinkers are unsophisticated about wine. I don’t think I have an attitude toward them. Nor do I agree with the study that “this finding offers the wine industry a great opportunity to develop an overlooked but large and accessible market segment and to expand wine consumption.” The wine industry hasn’t overlooked white Zin drinkers. It’s known for decades that the white Zinfandel crowd is a “large and accessible market” to try and educate upward. There’s nothing new or breakthrough about that. Gallo, Woodbridge and Sutter Home understand that in their bones, and deserve huge congratulations for helping to move consumers up to better wine via the portal of white Zinfandel.

It’s also crazy when Tim writes, “White Zinfandel drinkers are often the most sensitive tasters.” I don’t believe that for a second and I don’t think anyone reading this does. Maybe the researchers pulled that rabbit out of their study’s hat, but come on. It just shows that you can come up with anything you want when you send a professor off to find something. If white Zinfandel is for the most sensitive tasters, consider me the dullest taster around.

WINE ENTHUSIAST WINE STAR AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Hot off the press!

ZAP, the annual Zinfandel tasting at Fort Mason, is this week. I haven’t gone for years. At the last one I went to, along with 20,000 other people, all the toilets overflowed, not a happy thing under any circumstances, much less when everyone’s drinking.

I used to actually drink Zinfandel, rather than just critically review it, which is the main reason why it passes my lips these days. The first Zinfandel I have any record of having had was from Wine and The People, a 1976 bottling whose origin is listed as “Sonoma.” Not Valley or County; this was before labeling laws were initiated by the Feds. I must have bought it in San Francisco, where I was living, in 1979, although I did not open it for another four years. I remember the wine store clerk explaining to me what Wine and the People was, but I don’t remember anything he said. I turn now to Google; find tidbits, like eroded artifacts culled from an archeological dig. Wine and the People was located in “an old warehouse” in Berkeley.  Originally, it was “a home winemaker supply store and later on Berkeley’s first licensed winery [and] a meeting place for many budding winemakers, many now famous names.” The name referred to the fact that you — a person, anybody — could go there and make and bottle your own wine. (A kind of precursor of Crushpad?) It was founded by a gentleman named Peter Brehm, who now runs Brehm Vineyards.

Here are my exact notes on that Zinfandel:

“Date – 6/8/83
Color – rose, garnet, salmon rim
Nose – strong Zin; spicy, cedar/eucalyptus, vanilla & cantaloupe
Taste – powerful and alcoholic. Tannic. Fruit almost overwhelmed. Austere, elegant. Long finish – several minutes.
Food – steak.
Price – $10 (in 1979)”

A few things. Concerning the “salmon rim,” this refers, of course, to the meniscus, the outer edge of the wine in the glass. That Zin was nearly seven years old, and losing color. Concerning the “nose” (where did I learn to use that old-fashioned synecdoche? Broadbent?), I have no idea what I meant by “cantaloupe.” “Fruit almost overwhelmed” obviously refers to the tannins. But then, as the alcohol was 13.5%, it would not have been the kind of super-fruity Zinfandel we see today. (So why did I say it tasted “alcoholic”?)

Interestingly, the next Zinfandel I tasted, two months later, also was a 1976, Ridge’s Lytton Springs, from Dry Creek Valley, and it cost me all of $8 when I bought it, also in 1979. I liked it considerably more than the Wine and The People Zin, and used words like “brilliant,” “magnificent” and “perfect” to describe it. Unfortunately, I did not note what the alcohol was, but would be surprised if it exceeded 14%. Perhaps someone from Ridge will enlighten me.

I’ve had my ups and downs with Zinfandel during my career. I never did care for the fat, extracted, high-alcohol sweet style. Clumsy, inelegant, and undrinkable with almost anything, except for that all-purpose food group, “barbecue,” by which is meant “If you’re in the backyard gorging yourself on roasted animals, feel free to drink anything your hostess provides. Yes, even if it’s from a paper cup.”

On the other hand, given Zinfandel’s tendency to clumsiness, I am suitably impressed when an authentically balanced one comes my way. If you ask me where the best ones come from, I’d say, off the top of my head, Napa Valley, because they tend to show balance and richness, while remaining dry; and then, there are those Napa tannins, still the best in California. However, top-of-the-head truths can often by upset by bottom-line facts, as a search of my Zinfandel reviews (about 550 in all) in Wine Enthusiast’s database demonstrates. My highest-scoring Zinfandels all have come from Sonoma County’s valleys (Russian, Dry Creek,  Sonoma). I did like a Ravenswood 2007 Dickerson, and also a Zinfandel I had only two days ago, Rubicon’s 2007 Edizione Pennino. Both vineyards, interestingly, are in Rutherford. Although the Sierra Foothills are famous for Zinfandel, I haven’t cared all that much for them. Too alcoholic, often unbalanced. There’s some pretty rustic winemaking up in them thar hills. Coincidentally, as I turn the pages in my old cellarbook, I come to Zin #3 from those long ago daze: Also from Ridge, but this time it’s the 1980 Shenandoah Vineyards, which hailed from the Shenandoah Valley of Amador County. Of it I wrote: “warm…prickly and tart…bit hot on finish.” As too many Foothills Zins are today.

Zinfandel styles come and go, like women talking about Michaelangelo. We’ve had white Zin, blush Zin, carbonically-macerated Zin a la Beaujolais, Zinfandel port, “claret-style” Zin, knock-your-sox-off Zin, even (a crime against Nature) sparkling Zinfandel. Who can blame the public for being confused?