If there is one grape that has given me trouble over the years, it's Zinfandel. Prone to bunch rot, acid problems, over and under ripe on the same cluster, no color, and my favorite, stuck fermentations. All that said, I like Zinfandel.
It's certainly divisive. We've both had the odd Zin we liked well enough, but usually at the price points we'll find them, there's countless wines we'll like better. It doesn't help its image that it is one of the more popular wines to make cheap, highly manipulated bottles of, probably in part because of all the problems you mentioned that make producing a quality example more expensive.
Zinfandel is a workhorse grape in the Central Valley, say Lodi south. But it has lots of acreage in the foothills and North Coast AVA. I was brought up on Zinfandel. One trick is yields. To your point, High yielding = Lower Quality, which doesn't help the image. 10-15 tons per acre, doesn't get you great quality. So when you come across a high quality one, it probably had lower yields 2-6t/acre, better care in the vineyard, and better control to the crush pad, all equaling more money to produce.
"used wetsuit. One of the most evocative wine descriptors ever.
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If there is one grape that has given me trouble over the years, it's Zinfandel. Prone to bunch rot, acid problems, over and under ripe on the same cluster, no color, and my favorite, stuck fermentations. All that said, I like Zinfandel.
It's certainly divisive. We've both had the odd Zin we liked well enough, but usually at the price points we'll find them, there's countless wines we'll like better. It doesn't help its image that it is one of the more popular wines to make cheap, highly manipulated bottles of, probably in part because of all the problems you mentioned that make producing a quality example more expensive.
Zinfandel is a workhorse grape in the Central Valley, say Lodi south. But it has lots of acreage in the foothills and North Coast AVA. I was brought up on Zinfandel. One trick is yields. To your point, High yielding = Lower Quality, which doesn't help the image. 10-15 tons per acre, doesn't get you great quality. So when you come across a high quality one, it probably had lower yields 2-6t/acre, better care in the vineyard, and better control to the crush pad, all equaling more money to produce.