I find Zinfandel fascinating. It has a crazy history, a dubious lineage and can be made into a diverse variety of wines. First, let’s briefly talk about the history.
Sometime between 1820 and 1829, George Gibb received a shipment of vines from Europe and in one of those shipments was the Zinfandel vine. Gibb was a horticulturist and is believed to be the first person to start a vine nursery in the U.S. Gibb sold the vines to other nurserymen, who took the vines to California with them, during the gold rush of the 1850’s. Zinfandel became extremely popular and was widely planted throughout California. During Prohibition, home winemaking was still permitted and the Zinfandel grape was popular among those that lived close to the vineyards. However, wineries were only going to survive if they could ship grapes to other parts of the country and zinfandel did not ship well. It was susceptible to rot and so many of the Zinfandel vines were replace with Alicante Bouschet, which could survive shipment to the east coast.
The Zinfandel that was left was used as a blender wine until 1972, when Bob Trinchero, of Sutter Home Winery, experienced a stuck fermentation with a Zinfandel wine. He decided to bottle and sell the resulting sweet wine and call it White Zinfandel. It became extremely popular and still accounts for 9% of U.S. wine sales. The popularity of White Zinfandel regenerated interest in the Zinfandel grape and many winemakers began making red Zinfandel wines.
The second interesting thing about Zinfandel is the diversity of wines that the grape produce. The grape bunches ripen unevenly so there can be overripe, ripe and unripe berries on the same bunch. Some winemakers will choose to vinify the whole bunch, while other winemakers will choose to hand pick only the ripe grapes. Hand picking increases the cost of the wine because of the labor needed to make several passes through the vineyard.
When ripe, Zinfandel grapes have a high sugar content. This gives yeast plenty of food to eat, resulting in a wine with a high alcohol content. Manipulating this sugar content also allows the winemaker to produce several styles of wine from the Zinfandel grape. In addition to white and red Zinfandel wines, it can also be made into rosé and dessert wines.
The Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel is very much a dry red wine. The nose is fruity, with aromas of raspberry, strawberry and peach yogurt-which is the aroma I look for when blind tasting. The palette is more earthy in character. There is a smoky, cedar quality up front and then the raspberry and peach emerge. There is also cinnamon, allspice and tobacco to round out the flavor profile. The Bogle Zinfandel has 14.5% abv but, on the palate, it does not give the impression of being high in alcohol. It is a pleasant, structured wine for everyday consumption.
Red Zinfandel pairs with a wide variety of foods. It pairs with grilled chicken, beef, pork and lamb. It will also go with foods with more assertive flavors such as strong cheeses, pizza, spicy sausages, game meats and other spicy dishes. I chose to pair this with a spicy chickpea tagine over spiced rice. The Ras el Hanout in the tagine emphasizes the cinnamon in the wine and the wine spices blend with the dish making a great pairing. The sweetness of the raisins also goes nicely with the jammy quality of the wine.
So, if you are looking for a good all around red wine that will pair with anything you decide to make, I can’t recommend Zinfandel enough.