Zinfandel's
more passionate adherents got some wind knocked out of them in 2002, when
the premium wine grape they described as "America's own"
turned out to be European - and from a never-heard-of-it neighborhood
to boot.
In the years leading up to this discovery, Zin fans had become increasingly creative in defense of their chosen vine. When a southern Italian grape called Primitivo turned out to be genetically almost identical to Zinfandel, some Zin fans came up with a "reverse immigration" theory: the American grape was so good, they said, that Italian-Americans must have exported it back home to their winemaking cousins. (As if Italy, with more than 2,000 indigenous grape varieties, needed another one.)
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