The story of Primitivo and Zinfandel is made up of encounters. It begins in 1967, when Professor Austin Goheen of the Davis University (California), returning from a phytopathology conference in Germany, stopped in Bari to greet his colleague prof. Giovanni P. Martelli who, in turn, had been to Davis a few years earlier.
The two academics went for dinner in a restaurant in Bari and prof. Goheen noticed that the wine ordered by his friend Martelli – a Primitivo – was incredibly similar to the Zinfandel from his land. Since that evening the destinies of the two vines began to cross, taking up the work of Italian and American researchers and scientists who gradually debated the probable identity of the two grapes.
In the 90s Californian
Zinfandel was already well known and appreciated in the American market, also because it was considered to be the “only original grape variety” not coming from Europe. The Primitivo di Manduria instead, with our Felline, had just broken through the wall of widespread prejudice on Puglia and its wines, until then exclusively used in bulk trade.
In addition to the Accademia dei Racemi zoning project, we also wanted to intervene in the research and historical reconstruction of the relationship with the American Zinfandel. What intrigued us above all was the unknown origin of the name “Zinfandel”, attributed by historians to an incorrect classification of a vine originating in Hungary called Zierfahnler. Supporting the Apulian or rather “Mandurian” origin of the Zinfandel, we found intriguing and very likely the hypothesis that its name could derive from the famous “Sinfarosa” city quarter, well known among local farmers for the quality of its Primitivo.
So it was that on one of our many trips to California, we got hold of scions from one of the most prestigious Zinfandel vineyards in America: Ridge’s Geyserville. We took them to Manduria and over grafted exactly in the Sinfarosa area next to other Primitivo vineyards to observe their similarities and differences. Meanwhile Professor Carole Meredith of the Davis University had definitively finalized matters by establishing, based on her genetic research of the two vines’ DNA, that Zinfandel and Primitivo are identical.
Our Zinfandel Sinfarosa, repeatedly awarded the Tre Bicchieri by Gambero Rosso, is the only non-American wine admitted to the ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers) Gran Festival held every year in San Francisco.
