Although a native of Croatia, Zinfandel is now recognised as California’s own. This black grape variety, although used for off-dry fruity rosés, is at its best when used to make dry red wines, which are full-bodied and relatively high in alcohol, with flavours of black fruit, dried fruit and sweet spices.

Zinfandel began its life in the United States in the mid-1800’s and is thought to have started to gather popularity just after the Gold Rush of 1849, as it had been brought into the country by eager gold diggers who then converted to agriculture.

What started as table wine, Zinfandel can now fetch over $50 per bottle. It can make some very impressive fine wine when done right. It needs a warm climate, restricted yields, and old vines with the premium grapes coming from hillside vineyards, although despite this, difficulties can still be had, particularly due to uneven ripening. On what may seem a ripe cluster, a few green berries that haven’t developed properly can taint the final product.

For those wines of Zinfandel fetching a high price, you can start to imagine the amount of care that has gone before in the vineyard, but some have expressed concern surrounding the price tag, with Robert Parker for one claiming that the price trend is moving in a “dangerous direction”. This could be the case for California in general, as consumers in the UK and Ireland continually struggle to find good value from the United States, especially in the mid-range bracket (say, €10-€20 here).

Since a resurgence, which started in the late 1980’s, Zinfandel now covers around 11% of California’s vineyards (Oz Clarke, Encyclopaedia of Grapes). It can be made to produce many different styles. Anything from light, sweet rosés, to fruity Beaujolais style reds or big dark, fruit-driven blockbusters. It’s all there for you to enjoy… if you look hard enough.

Sitting late last night, glass of Zinfandel in hand and a copy of Decanter magazine from the not so distant past, I stumbled across an article by TV’s Oz Clarke, asking why there are no good, mid-range wines from California available in the UK. I think this is also a fair question to ask as an Irish consumer when questioning Californian wine available here.

When Oz and James May were galivanting around California for BBC’s “Big Wine Adventure”, it came to light very quickly that that key mid-range price bracket was not being catered for in terms of quality, like it would be from other countries, such as France or Australia. Oz expected that $15 (perhaps equivalent to a €12 bottle available in Ireland) would be a safe place to start, giving him the best value for money, but he struggled to find anything that would have him going back for more.

Varietal character, a sense of terroir and the personality of the producer lacked in this category that should be hitting such a large market of wine enthusiasts. His notes consistently read ‘remarkably little flavour’, with ‘clean’ and ‘inoffensive’ simply not being ambitious enough for this kind of money. As with all wine critics that are taken seriously, OZ would be scoring against retail price - thus judging a wine based on value for money.

California is certainly producing some amazing wines. The same could be said of Oregon. Although my time in California and experience in the market here would lead me along the same line of thought as Oz Clarke. While the U.S. has cracked it when it comes to world class wines (which you might have to pay an arm and a leg for) and inexpensive, mass produced grape juice that isn’t aimed at the wine enthusiast, there is a massive gap - where affordable wines at exceptional quality are more readily found elsewhere.