Primitivo, Zinfandel? WT...

But these grapes are actually genetically similar. And even more, Primitivo and Zinfandel were never the original names for this grape. The grapes are originally from Croatia, where they're called “Tribidrag" and sometimes “Crljenak Kaštelanski."

We didn't know Zinfandel and Primitivo were the same grape until the 1960s.

Furthermore, we didn't trace the roots of these grapes to Tribidrag until 2001.

Here's how Zinfandel and Primitivo got split apart and rediscovered as the same grape.

The Grape Adventure
In the 18th century, a priest named Don Francesco Filippo Indellicati had a fondness for wine. He sourced some grapes from Croatia, including Tribidrag and planted them in Liponti, Italy. He noticed the Tribidrag grapes seemed to ripen before any other grape, so he started calling them Primitivo (translation: first one) and the name stuck. As the grapes were so easy to manage with the surrounding climate, Primitivo took off like wildfire throughout Apulia, Italy, becoming the most commonly planted grape in the region.

Meanwhile, the Tribidrag grape arrived in Boston in 1829, from Vienna, where it had been taken to by the Habsburg monarchy that ruled over Croatia at the time. In Boston, it was received by a horticulturist named George Gibbs, and it was used as a table grape and referred to as Zenfendal, a play on its Hungarian name tzinifándli.

Gibbs moved to California to follow the gold rush in 1850, taking with him the Zinfandel vines. In 1857, they were planted and used for winemaking for the first time in North America at Oak Knoll vineyard in northern Napa. The wine was received so well that Zinfandel production boomed almost overnight. By the 1890s, it had gone from being used as a table grape to being the most commonly produced variety for wine in America.

Little did Italy or the United States know that Primitivo and Zinfandel were not unique and not their own grape.

Discovery
Eyebrows were first raised in 1967 when UC Davis Professor Austin Goheen visited Puglia and noticed an astounding similarity between Primitivo and Zinfandel. In 1968, Primitivo was brought to California, and after analysis, the grapes were declared identical.

Carole Meredith of UC Davis picked up the research in the 1990s, pinpointing Croatia as the birthplace of these grapes. She collected over 150 vines for analysis from across the country to no avail. At one point her team was convinced Plavac Mali was the grape in question, but it was later confirmed that this grape was the child of Zinfandel/Primitivo and not the parent.

In 2001, after nearly a decade of searching, the breakthrough came on the Dalmatian coast. After sampling a vine in Kaštel Novi, it was determined that the grape in question was Crljenak Kaštelanski, of which only 9 vines existed in a vineyard of thousands of other varieties. It took nearly 50 years to be certain, but alas, the true origin grape of Zinfandel and Primitivo was found and their histories unravelled.

Now, how about a glass of Crljenak or Tribidrag?