ZinQuest Saga Continues: New Ridge Vineyards' Zin Celebrates Three Heritage Clones Connecting Croatia and California

Pribidrag 43.1 planted for the first time commercially in the U.S. (Ridge Vineyards photo)

Source: Seven Fifty Daily

For decades, the origin of Zinfandel, the black-skinned grape that produces full-bodied, jammy red wines and several styles of rosé, was a mystery. Now painstaking work by wine researchers in Croatia and the United States have culminated in a landmark cuvée, to be released later this year, from grapes grown at Ridge Vineyards’ Lytton Springs property in Sonoma, California. For the past five years, Ridge has successfully grown an acre of Crljenak Kaštelanski, and an acre each of two other Pribidrag cuttings (“Pribidrag” is local variant name.). These three clones, discovered in Croatia’s Dalmatia region, were the key to pinpointing Zinfandel’s ancestral home.

• Read more at Seven Fifty Daily

• Related article from Ridge Vineyards web site

Crljenak Kasteljanski clones planed at Lytton Springs
on July 18th, 2015