California’s Great Zinfandel War
You know Chris Rauber of the San Francisco Business Times had a good time writing this story about a proposal in the CA State legislature to make Zinfandel California’s State Wine.
Apparently some oppose the brilliant and obvious idea. Yet what other wine variety is truly "Californian" if not "American" if not Zinfandel. There is no other country on earth that supports this wine like we do.
Zinfandel was the wine that put California’s wine industry in motion when it began being planted in Earnest in the 1860s. Still, some disagree.
Randall Grahm, who should be everyone’s wine hero despite his view on this issue, noted "This idea is the predictable result of drinking too much 15.8 percent alcohol wine."
Au Contraire, Randall. While I’d guess you’d have no wine, out of fairness, be named the State Wine, I still have to ask, do you have better candidate? We must claim the fair Zinfandel as our own. I say, remove the bear from the flag and replace it with a glass of sturdy, 15.8% Zinfandel.
Rauber frames the issue as a "Wine War". It’s catchy. But unlikely. Still, if it comes to that, I’m ready to suit up on the side of Zinfandel.
Maybe a ZAP hosted Zin tasting for the CA State legislature is in order.