ZINFANDEL' NATIVE PLACE

In 19993, the team of Professor Carole Meredith at the University of California at Davis used a DNA analyss technique and confirmed that Primitivo and Zinfandel are clones of the same variety cépage, 2comparative test have subsequently conclued that the selection of primitive transplants generally had a higher yield than those of Zinfandel , arriving early maturity , witha yield equal to a greater and lesser susceptibility to rot Brune These findings are consistent with the theory that the primitive is the result of a selection of Croatian clones selected dor their early maturity.

Similarities in the organoleptic characteristics of the respective Zinfandel California , malic plavac Croatia an Primitivo from southern Italy n indeed prompted to think , at first glance , these varieties were not actually o,e , Yet nothing was less obvious when not held not only in apperances.

Forty years a true and meticulous dedective work , analysis and research by both by scientist, and historians ampelographers, finaly elucidated the mystery of the origins of Zinfandel ... Their findings confirm and disprove at the time , what we subodorait.

In addition , this tracking endless eventful , resulted give the zinfandel almost mythical status in the quest for the origins of the main grape varieties used in the world today that mobilizes and passionate copntempory oenology.

Afirst clue to the origin of Zinfandel

A Californian origin of this variety was highly unlikely for the simple reason that there was no Vitis Vinifera on the American continent before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in Mexico in April 1519 . They are the ones who introduced it .But what puzzled is that the Zinfandel grape is not Spanish or even European.

Discovery in the literature of the nineteenth century led , initialy , to a track on a possible Hungarian origin , In is book published in 1820 zinfandel A History of a Grape and Its Wines ( Charles Sulivan ) showed that this plant vines were imported from botanical garden imperial Schönbrunn in Vienna at a nursery long Island in the United States .Then from there , for several decades , it was cultivated by amateurs in north eastern United States an Vinified to be Consumed as table wine.

This is another nurseryman (Frederick Macondray , who decided to send him to California in 1852 under the name of Zinfandel which , considering its adaptability to the soil and warm climate in California , it grew rapidly to meet the demand of the thirty gold diggers of the time they grande westward.

But his presence at the Botanical Institute of Vienna , at the time of the splendor of the Austro- Hungarian Empire , which also included Croatia , was not in itself evidence of a possible origin magyar.

Zinfandel and Primitvo ar a single grape variety

A major breakthough in the indentification of the origin intervened in 1967 , when dr .Austin Goheen , a scientist at the University of California winemaking Davis , visiting the Itaian region of publia, tasted by randon local wine called Primitivo reminded him of Zinandel Strongly . He then asked to see the vineyards and concluded that the primitive zinfandel and were certainly the same variety with two different names.

yet it failed to resolve the origin of the first . No archive did not mention the italian Primitivo grape as native italian and genetic reseach confirmed that it was not part of ampelographic heritage of the peninsula. we scaffolding then all kinds of theories , each more improbable than the other.