The Zajednicar, November 20, 1996:

WASHINGTON, DC - Obscured by history, politics and long-held misperceptions, the true origin of America's Zinfandel grape remained hidden - until now. For more than a century the mystery grape of American vinculture has been Zinfandel, known to have come from somewhere in Europe but its country of origin lost in history.

Zinfandel was the grape of backyard vineyards nurtured by southern European immigrants to the U.S. East Coast before the turn of the century and right through Prohibition, the grape that gave us the most powerful and robust of all California red wines, and today it is the grape of America's most popular premium varietal wine, the so-called White Zinfandel that is actaully not white but pink.

Despite its noble reputation and great popularity, Zinfandel's origins have somehow eluded the enologist and researchers who sought its European roots for decades with little success, first linking it to to the Primitivo of Puglia in southern Italy, then discovering that Primitivo arrived in Italy years after Zinfandel came to the U.S.

Known to belong to the European Vitis vinfera species of grape that gave us, among others, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonay and Pinot Noir from France, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese from Italy, Riesling and Sylvaner from Germany and Tempranillo from Spain, Zinfandel remained the orphan, because no other comparable grapes could be found any place else in the world, except in southern Italy, where its late arrival rule it out as the source.

Now the mystery apparently has been solved. An array of newfound evidence indicates that Zinfandel came from what is now Croatia in Southern Europe, where its relative is variously called Plavac Mali or Mali Plavac, and is used to make Croatia's greatest wines, among them "Dingac" and "Postup" from the Dalmatian coast on the Adriatic Sea. These are wines virtually identical in strength, character and flavor to American Zinfandel, although often somewhat more refined because of many years of transmutation and selective breeding.

"This is the area where Zinfandel was born," says Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, seated at the dining table in a Croatian friend's house sipping homemade "Postup" poured from a glass pitcher. "It's the same variety - It's Zinfandel," he says. We are in the tiny, sunny seaside village of Trstenik on the Peljesac Peninsula about 50 miles north of Dubrovnik. Grgich, best known for the prize-winning Chardonnays that he makes at Grgich Hills cellar in the Napa Valley, has just built a winery here and will produce his first Plavac Mali in the vintage of 1996.

Mike Grgich, a native of Croatia who left in 1958, uses the word Zinfandel interchangeably with "Mali Plavac" ( pronounced mah-lee plah-vahts) in conversation with an American visitor. "Mali Plavac, Plavac Mali, you can say it either way, it's Zinfandel," he says. "People moved from here to Italy and brought it with them," he continues, reciting a litany repeated by other Croatian winemakers, who seem amused that they are the only ones who have long been convinced of the common origins of their grapes and the Zinfandel.

If there is any significant difference between the flavor of "Plavac Mali" and California Zinfandel, the Croatian versions seem slightly more elegant with less of the concentrated spicy, peppery character of a typical brawny Zinfandel and more black stone fruit character. "Plavac" has developed many clones here because it has been here so long," explains Grgich. "There are three major clones, and 'Mali' is the best because of the small grapes." He further explains that the word "Mali" means small, while "plav" means blue, for the bluish tint of the grapes hanging on the vines and for the deep color of the young vines.

Often, there will be no indication of grape variety on a Croatian label, just as most other European wines are named not for the grape but for the area of production. In Croatia the name "Dingac", for example, is geographical, referring to the area on the Peljesac Peninsula where the vines catch a double dose of sunlight reflected off the sea. The wines called "Dingac" are rich and fairly tannic, with great texture and density.

The "Postup" wines, named after a nearby area on the same peninsula, are somewhat more elegant, although they share the same black fruit flavors. The wines of the "Dingac" and "Postup" appellations are always "Plavac Mali", just as the red wines of the Cote d'Or in Burgundy are always Pinot Noir and the wines of the Medoc in Bordeaux are mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, even though their labels rarely mention the grape. Lesser Croatian wines made from "Plavac" in other parts of the country carry varietal labels that simply proclaim Plavac, sometimes with a brand name or village name attached, as Zlatan Plavac from the island of Hvar or Viski Plavac from the island of Vis.

In California, the arrival of Zinfandel vines in the mid-19th century was attributed for many years to Count Agoston Haraszthy of Hungary...In the time of Haraszthy, Dalmatia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, Zinfandel's probable origin as "Plavac Mali" in Dalmatia does not conflict with its identification as Hungarian or even Austrian in Haraszthy's time. It is entirely possible that Haraszthy brought Zinfandel vines to California in 1861, although he was not the first to bring them to America, since the grape had already been identified on the East Coast decades earlier. How it got to the East Coast is anybody's guess, but now it seems clear that it came originally from the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, where the "Plavac Mali" thrives today, producing "Dingac," "Postup" and other great reds in the image of California Zinfandel.

From the CROATIA TODAY Newsletter Embassy of the Republic of Croatia Washington, D.C.

Zinfandel by Patrick W Fegan -1994 another article on the origins of this wine - local article
See ZAP Wine Tasting Zinfandel Advocates Producers Web Page

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