Remind me again about the origins of zinfandel

[Jenise]

I'm confused. Primitivo turned out not to be zin after all, it's some Croatian grape, or are they all the same thing or something else entirely?

[David M. Bueker]

It's the Croatian variety, Tribidrag, aka Crljenak Kaštelanski.

[Jenise]

And Primitivo is just a cousin, or not even that?

[David M. Bueker]

It's the same grape.

[Robin Garr]

Here's an Australian page that sums it up briskly and well, with due credit to Carole Meredith:

http://www.vinodiversity.com/tribidrag- ... riety.html

[David M. Bueker]

All my info came from the Jancis Robinson book, Wine Grapes.

Tribigrag, Zin and Primitivo are the same variety based on the genetic markers used to establish identity.

They could still be, and probably are I guess, different clones or sets of clones. So they could still be different in practical terms. Depends on exactly what question you are asking.

Not sure if anyone has tried transplanting Zin to South Italy, or Pimitivo to California, to grow side-by-side with the "more native" vines. Could be an interesting experiment.

[Robin Garr]

Not sure if anyone has tried transplanting Zin to South Italy, or Pimitivo to California, to grow side-by-side with the "more native" vines. Could be an interesting experiment.

Rabbit Ridge did that and got two hot, alcoholic monsters.

[David M. Bueker]

Not sure if anyone has tried transplanting Zin to South Italy, or Pimitivo to California, to grow side-by-side with the "more native" vines. Could be an interesting experiment.

Rabbit Ridge did that and got two hot, alcoholic monsters.

So pretty much like the rest of their wines.

[Jenise]

Not sure if anyone has tried transplanting Zin to South Italy, or Pimitivo to California, to grow side-by-side with the "more native" vines. Could be an interesting experiment.

A few have. Was searching for something yesterday and was surprised to find several from the early 90's but I don't remember by who. I researched Trentadue, Steele, Ridge and Sobon--so it was one of those.

Not sure if anyone has tried transplanting Zin to South Italy, or Pimitivo to California, to grow side-by-side with the "more native" vines. .

Primitivo vines were on sale at the Amador County Wine Fair in 2002; wine growers I spoke to there said that Primitivo had a smaller berry size than Zinfandel and ripened at a different time.

CellarTracker shows a considerable number of California and other US states wines labelled as Primitivo.

The EU considers Primitivo and Zinfandel to be synonyms the US (TBB) does not.

Salute

The EU considers Primitivo and Zinfandel to be synonyms

I have seen this stated a few times, but am struggling to find any official EU source. I wasn't even aware that the EU maintains lists of grapes and synonyms. Maybe this was just asserted in some trade negotiations to enable Italian Primitivo to be sold as Zinfandel in the US. Do you know any more?

The Zinfandel Wikipedia article references the document I link to below for the fact. I can recommend it as an interesting article on Zinfandel, but it does not really help in saying where the EU said they are synonyms:
http://fpms.ucdavis.edu/WebSitePDFs/New ... ov2007.pdf

Robin wrote a nice article
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wlp_archi ... 080407.php
The EU was first to catch up with the DNA evidence, in 1999 they ruled Zinfandel and Primitivo were synonyms. The US (TBB) was a little slower in 1998 they ruled Zinfandel and Primitivo were not synonyms, but in 2002 there was talk of revising this ruling. So therefore wines sold within the EU could be labeled Zinfandel or Primitivo. Wines made for the US market most have the country’s original name for the grape variety. (As noted in Robin’s article they are allowing Italian Primitivo to “reference” (in smaller font size) Zinfandel.

Salute

[Robin Garr]

Robin wrote a nice article
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wlp_archi ... 080407.php

Victor, thanks! That was before the news about Tribidrag came out, though, so it's missing the latest news.

Thanks, but I was trying to find the actual EU documents. It's not hugely important, but I thought it would be cool to have a list of EU-approved synonyms. After more googling, I am almost there.

This is the document that has the table of synonyms, in Appendix III:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 31990R3201
Except unfortunately this link only gives the TEXT of the document, and omits tables, which of course contain a lot of the useful information, including the contents of Appendix III. On the positive side, the document has all sorts of trivia, like a list of EU wines that are allowed to use bottles of the flute and bocksbeutel format. Sometimes I think Brexit might not be so bad after all

And according to this paper
http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/c ... text=ijgls
the table mentioned above was amended by this regulation to add the Zinfandel synonym
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 31998R2770
Unfortunately again, the precise modification is in a table. This document is as I suspected all about modifications for trade agreements. Note that the amending regulation has a 1998 date. Perhaps it was accepted or something in 1999?

Hi Steve

You did well to find those documents.

I can add a soupcon.

The tables are there in the PDF versions of the documents which can be seen by clicking the PDF logo at the top.

Strangely, in the first document linked to I cannot see Primitivo listed:-
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 01&from=EN

but in the last link you give it shows
Annex III to Regulation (EEC) No 3201/90 is amended as follows:
1. under point 5 `ITALY', the names of the following vine varieties and synonyms are added:
EN
Official Journal of the European Communities
22. 12. 98
L 346/26
Name of the vine variety used in the
classification of vine varieties for the administrative
unit concerned
`Primitivo N
Calabrese N

Accepted synonyms – in general
Zinfandel N
Nero d'Avola N'


(Not the same formatting source http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 70&from=EN)

I assume that the EU just formalises here what has been approved by the various authorities in each country/region, rather than (as I understand it) the TTB which is the arbiter for the entire United States, and I believe the TTB only makes additions when petitioned to do so. so if no-one is applying to them to allow Primitivo to be a synonym for Zinfandel then it won't be..

According to EC 607/2009 under the section of labeling the wine by varietal (besides the fact that the grape must be allowed or grown in the members state) the grape variety (or a synonym) must be listed in the database of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV).

Salute

I just finished a bottle of Day Wines sparkling Primitivo (pet-nat) from the Applegate Valley in Oregon. Which is neither here nor there, except that it means somebody in Oregon is growing Primitivo. It wasn't really my cup of sparkling tea: I much preferred her pet-nat Malvasia Bianca.

I'd try a sparkling Tribidrag, though.

[David M. Bueker]

I'd try a sparkling Tribidrag, though.

Tell Carole Meredith!

I even have a name for it: Pétribillant Dragnaturel!

It's French! It's Croatian! It's from Mount Veeder! "NOW how much would you pay?"

Hi Steve
You did well to find those documents.
I can add a soupcon.
The tables are there in the PDF versions of the documents which can be seen by clicking the PDF logo at the top.

Thanks. It could have been made a bit clearer, but I still should have tried that. I tried many other ways to find the PDFs!

Strangely, in the first document linked to I cannot see Primitivo listed:-
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 01&from=EN

Maybe I am misintrepreting what you say, but it is not listed is because that document pre-dates the one that says Primitivo should be added. I would be nice to have an updated document, but I don't think that is how things work.

According to EC 607/2009 under the section of labeling the wine by varietal (besides the fact that the grape must be allowed or grown in the members state) the grape variety (or a synonym) must be listed in the database of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV).

Many thanks for pointing that out. It makes a lot more sense to do it like that!

This is straying a bit from the original topic, but can someone explain how Alsace gets away with using "Pinot Blanc" on the label when the bottle can contain a large fraction of Auxerrois? I am told this happens in practice, and have personally recently checked the AOC regulations, which confirm this is permitted.

This seems to directly contravene the EC 607/2009 document Victorwine mentioned. Here it is repeated what we probably all know, that "For products with protected designation of origin or geographical indication or with a geographical indication of a third country, the names of the wine grape varieties or their synonyms may be mentioned: if only one wine grape variety or its synonym is named, at least 85 % of the products have been made from that variety". And Auxerrois does not feature as an OIV synonym for Pinot Blanc - I checked just to be 100% sure.