White Zinfandel
Encyclopedia
White Zinfandel, often abbreviated as White Zin, is an off-dry to sweet, pink-colored blush wine. White Zinfandel is made from the Zinfandel
Zinfandel
Zinfandel is a variety of red grape planted in over 10 percent of California vineyards. DNA fingerprinting revealed that it is genetically equivalent to the Croatian grape Crljenak Kaštelanski, and also the Primitivo variety traditionally grown in Puglia , where it was introduced in the 18th century...

 wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 grape
Grape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

, which would otherwise produce a bold and spicy red wine. As such, it is not a grape variety but a method of processing Zinfandel grapes. As of February 2006, White Zinfandel accounted for 10% of all wine sold by volume, making it the third most popular varietal
Varietal
"Varietal" describes wines made primarily from a single named grape variety, and which typically displays the name of that variety on the wine label. Examples of grape varieties commonly used in varietal wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, outselling Red Zinfandel 6:1 by volume.

Style

Historically an inexpensive jug wine
Jug wine
Jug wine is a term in the United States for inexpensive table wine typically bottled in a glass jug.Historically, jug wines were labeled semi-generically, often sold to third parties to be relabeled, or sold directly from the winery's tasting room to customers who would often bring their own bottles...

, White Zinfandel is a quaffing wine that is sweet, soft, and often low in alcohol, making it a popular choice with those who would not otherwise drink wine. It occupies a similar market position to that of Mateus Rosé in Europe. The sugar content can make White Zinfandel taste almost like a fruit punch, although some examples have crisp acids and are balanced in their own way. White Zinfandel is typically manufactured for immediate consumption rather than for aging.

History of White Zinfandel


Zinfandel was first made into a rosé
Rosé
A rosé is a type of wine that has some of the color typical of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink. The pink color can range from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes and wine making techniques.- Production techniques :There are three major ways to produce rosé...

 wine in 1869 by the El Pinal Winery in Lodi, California
Lodi, California
Lodi is a city located in , in the northern portion of California's Central Valley. The population was 62,134 at the 2010 census. The California Department of Finance's population estimate as of January 1, 2011 is 62,473....

. The resulting wine was thought of highly enough that California viticultural commissioner Charles Wetmore, the later founder of Cresta Blanca Winery
Cresta Blanca Winery
Cresta Blanca Winery was one of the original Livermore Valley wineries. It was founded by Charles Wetmore in 1882 with cuttings of Sauvignon blanc from Meursault, Burgundy, France. Its first vintage, a dry white wine in 1884 won Grand Prize at the 1889 Paris Exposition, becoming the first...

, advocated Zinfandel's use as a white wine grape.

In the 1970s Sutter Home Winery
Sutter Home Winery
Sutter Home Winery is one of the largest, independent family-run wineries in the United States, and the estate known for the creation of White Zinfandel. It is located in St. Helena, California...

 was a producer of premium Zinfandel red wine in the Napa Valley
Napa Valley AVA
Napa Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Napa County, California, United States. Napa Valley is considered one of the top wine regions in the United States...

. To increase concentration in their wines, they used the saignée technique to bleed off some of the grape juice before fermentation, to increase the impact of compounds in the skins on the remaining wine. The excess juice was separately fermented into a dry, almost white wine that Sutter Home called "White Zinfandel."

In 1975, Sutter Home's White Zinfandel experienced a "stuck fermentation
Stuck fermentation
A stuck fermentation occurs in brewing beer or winemaking when the yeast become dormant before the fermentation has completed. Unlike an "arrested fermentation" where the winemaker intentionally stops fermentation , a stuck fermentation is an unintentional and unwanted occurrence that can lead to...

", a problem that occurs when the yeast dies out before consuming all of the sugar. This problem juice was set aside. Some weeks later the winemaker tasted it, and preferred this accidental result, which was a sweet pink wine. This is the style that became popular and today is known as White Zinfandel, but in the early days was known as Cabernet Blanc or White Cabernet. Sutter Home realized they could sell far more White Zinfandel than anything they had produced to date, and gradually became a successful producer of inexpensive wines. They remain one of the biggest producers of the wine, with annual shipments of over four million cases.

The demand for White Zinfandel resulted in extended commercial viability of old vine
Old vine
Old vine is a term commonly used on wine labels to indicate that a wine is the product of grape vines that are notably old. The practice of displaying it stems from the general belief that older vines, when properly handled, will give a better wine...

 Zinfandel vineyards, which saved them from being ripped out. When the fine wine boom started in the 1980s, demand for red Zinfandel picked up considerably and these vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...

s became prized for the low yields from century-old vines. With White Zinfandel outselling red Zinfandel 6:1 by volume, there's not enough juice left over from red wine production to satisfy demand for White Zinfandel. So Sutter Home (and most producers today) grow grapes specifically for use in White Zinfandel, in places like the Central Valley of California. Production costs are substantially lower and fruit quality is not as important to the final taste as it would be in a dry table wine.

See also

  • California wine
    California wine
    California wine has a long and continuing history, and in the late twentieth century became recognized as producing some of the world's finest wine. While wine is made in all fifty U.S. states, up to 90% of American wine is produced in the state...

  • Oeil de Perdrix
    Oeil de Perdrix
    Oeil de Perdrix is a rosé wine produced in Switzerland. The history of the wine style dates back to the Middle Ages in the Champagne region of France and from there spread to the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland where it would become a popular dry rosé made from Pinot noir...

    , the style of wine that Sutter was making that led to White Zinfandel
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