a corkscrew To Win With Zin

By Kent Rosenblum


This article is not about becoming an amateur electrician or getting proficient with a stun gun. It’s actually about an electrifying wine that has its own four-day festival in San Francisco. This wine was declared the official wine of San Francisco in January by Mayor Gavin Newsom, and has been hailed as America’s heritage grape by many writers and groups. Its history dates back to before the Gold Rush days, and in some sense it can be called a barometer of California history and economics. If you haven’t guessed by now, this wine is a rich, red, zesty, spicy wine called Zinfandel, and the four-day festival in San Francisco is hosted by Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP).

It all starts Jan. 25 with a regional wine comparison of Zinfandels.This is done with panels of winemakers discussing their products while the consumer gets to be the judge and taste Zinfandels from different regions side by side. Generally there are five to six flights. This takes place at City College of San Francisco in the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies building from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The fun continues Jan. 26 with 50 wineries and 50 restaurants pairing up to match magnificent dishes with great Zinfandels one-to-one. The venue is the Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center. The ZAP festival is meant to be fun and educational, with the highlight being the grand tasting at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco on Jan. 28. There, more than 10,000 Zinfandel aficionados will gather to meet with more than 300 different vintners and wineries for an afternoon of tasting, with gourmet cheeses, breads and olive oils. This event is the largest gathering of consumers and trade for any single varietal wine in the world, which means that you are not only learning and having fun, but you are a part of enological history.

Jan. 27 is the gala evening with the winemakers’ dinner and auction. It features a winemaker at each dinner table pouring his or her best wines.There are some great auction lots to bid on, and the music and dancing are terrific. The proceeds from this event support the ongoing research into the 97 historic clones of Zinfandel planted at the UC Davis Oakville research station. The results of this project will be preserving the old clones of Zinfandel for posterity, and the potential availability of this fantastic budwood for commercial use in vineyards of the future.

Zinfandel, America’s heritage wine, has been produced for more than 150 years in many styles. It is a versatile grape that reflects the microclimates of the region in which it’s grown, the historical clone that is cultivated, the viticultural practices that it’s managed under, and the potential field blends of other grapes in the vineyard. These factors all come together to affect the final product along with the winemaker’s philosophy and technology. These are some reasons why Zinfandel as a red wine can be so diverse and interesting.

Zinfandel has also been produced as a white wine (pressed with little skin contact), a lateharvest wine (left on the vine for a long time to make a sweet dessert wine) and a port-style wine (fortified with brandy to stop fermentation and create a highalcohol, sweet wine). However, it really shows its stuff as a vibrant, rich, fruit-forward red wine that is not pretentious and goes with everything from pizza to pot-stickers. So if you’re stuck on a desert island with one choice of a wine, you win with Zin. *** Tickets for the ZAP festival can be purchased through the Fort Mason box office at (415) 345-7575, or fax an order to (415) 292-4639. For further information, see the Web site at zinfandel.org.