We Americans are often preoccupied with our genealogies and trace our ancestry for hundreds of years to find our roots on another continent. Curious anecdotes, colorful characters and family scandals are often unearthed. Wine enthusiasts are often similarly interested in the origins of their favorite grape varieties. The quest to solve the mystery of California Zinfandel's ancestry has been a fascinating process engaging the efforts of ampelographers, genetic scientists, viticulturists and historians.

Many theories, claims and stories have surrounded Zinfandel since the grape became fashionable in the 1980's. DNA fingerprinting has finally proved that California Zinfandel and southern Italy's Primitivo are one and the same grape. I was once speculated that the Croatian grape Plavic Mali was also identical, but vine geneticist Carole Meredith (University of California, Davis) and Croatian scientists Ivan Pejic and Edi Maletic have proved otherwise. Plavic Mali is the off-spring of Zinfandel and Dobricic, yet another Croatian grape. With joined efforts these researchers have now found an indigenous Croatian grape identical to Zinfandel and Primitivo called Crljenak.

Many Zinfandel fans believed that the vine must have been imported from Apulia, but the emergence of Primitivo in Italy appears to be relatively recent and it is presently suspected that the reverse is true. The California historian Charles L. Sullivan discovered that a man named George Gibbs imported the grape from the Austro-Hungarian imperial nursery in Vienna and brought it to Boston in 1829. Zinfandel made its way to California during the Gold Rush and was also known there as Zinfindal. Settlers also discovered that it was identical to another grape on the east coast called Black St. Peters. Evidence to support the allegation that Black St. Peters was imported from France have not been validated.

Although at least some Zinfandel originated from what is now Austria, there seems to be no trace of it there now. Zierfandler, the similarly named autochthon grape from lower Austria, bears no resemblance to the black skinned Zinfandel. This white wine grape ripens late while turning reddish short before harvest, as its synonym Spaetrot describes. Ampelographers and viticulturists have voiced no suspicions of one of the present Austrian red wine grapes being identical to the California Zinfandel.

The similarity in the names Zinfandel and Zierfandler arouses some speculation. Modern vine identification systems did not yet exist in 1829, so it is conceivable that the cuttings George Gibbs imported to the USA had never been correctly identified in Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was huge at that time and the vines in the Vienna nursery were collected from many various and often distant vineyards. Different languages and dialects add to the confusion and have often contributed to widespread errors in naming grapevines. It is also imaginable that bundles of vine cuttings in George Gibbs' shipment were mixed up or identification labels lost and Zinfandel first received that name in the USA.

Zinfandel was long California's adopted child of unclear European heritage. Now that DNA fingerprinting has uncovered its identity to be identical to Primitivo and Crljenak, Italian and Croatian vintners of these grapes will surely try to emulate its success in California. In any case it appears that Zinfandel, an obscure grape of humble origins is the viticultural immigrant that has achieved its "American dream".