Blaauwklippen – Wine Tasting – 28 August 2017

Join us on Monday, 28th August 2017 at 7h00 pm, when the wine maker from the Blaauwklippen range of wines.

As Blaauwklippen is well known for the rather unusual grape variety/ cultivar “Zinfandel”, they choose to highlight the following wines.

The suggested tasting line up is:

Diva MCC 2015

Zinfandel 2015

White Zinfandel 2017

NLH Zinfandel 2012

Before & After

Distiller’s Reserve (Zinfandel Grappa)

Where does Zinfandel come from?

Thanks to DNA testing, it has been proven by Dr. Carole Meredith of UC Davis that Zinfandel & Primitivo are the same. The next closest relative that she studied was the Plavac mali (plah-vahtz mahlee). Plavac mali is an offspring of Zinfandel and the Croatian varietal named Dobricic. Eventually she found a grape called Crljenak kastelanski (sirl-yen-ack kastelanski) in Croatia. It was then confirmed that Zinfandel, Primitivo, and Crljenak kastelanski are genetically linked, having originated on Croatia’s Dalmation coast. Zinfandel showed up on the east coast of the United States around 1829. It is thought by some, that sometime in the early 1800’s, when Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that cuttings of the Crljenak were taken to the palace gardens in Vienna. The vines we now call Zinfandel probably came from the palace nursery. Zinfandel is now known as “the California grape”.

Different Styles:

Nearly as versatile as Chardonnay in the number of different styles of wine produced from it, it has only achieved widespread popularity in America since 1980, as a pink, slightly sweet wine. In fact, this popularity has so outstripped all other forms, that many fans think that there is actually a grape called “White Zinfandel” (there isn’t)!

Zinfandel as a red wine can be made light and fruity, much like French Beaujolais, or lively, complex and age worthy, like Cabernet or claret. It can also be made into big, ripe, high alcohol style wines that resemble Port. Zinfandel is also a component of most California “jug” wines, since it is the most widely planted red wine grape.

In the vineyard:

This vineyard proliferation can be attributed to zinfandel’s hardy nature. Adaptable to a wide range of soils and climates, its vines tend to be vigorous and productive. Zinfandel also has a frequent tendency to set a second crop.

The clusters are compact and full and the berry stems (peduncles) somewhat short. These factors make Zinfandel somewhat susceptible to bunch rot and some types of mildew. Water management is particularly critical to raising Zinfandel.

Under stress from lack of moisture, it is prone to raisining. It also ripens more unevenly than most other varieties and it is not uncommon for green and raisined berries to occur within the same cluster. This tendency to can be aggravated by poorly timed irrigation. Uneven ripening also means that machine-picking is impractical and a Zinfandel vineyard may often require a few passes, days apart, to harvest all the fruit with the same level of maturity.

Because of its vigour, generosity and resistance to vine disease, many zinfandel vineyards exist that are 75 to 100 or more years old. Zinfandel aficionados believe these “old vines” produce the best wines, because the older vineyards set smaller crops and the grapes tend to ripen more evenly.