Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator are arguably the burly boys of the wine magazine world. They and their tasters can make or break the reputation of a winery (deserved or not…but that’s a debate that will never be resolved) by the flick of a pen. Or tapping of a keyboard as the case may be. Their tasting notes, ratings, and recommendations are read avidly by millions of wine fans, and we all look forward to their yearly Top 100 lists.

It is no secret that I’m quite the Paso Robles wine aficionado. What they do with Zinfandel and Rhône blends is terrific, but it’s more than that.  The talented winemakers there also do amazing things with grapes sourced outside of the region.  For instance, Hug Cellars makes some of the best Pinots I’ve ever tasted, and the grapes are sourced from various coastal areas. Other wineries, such as Sculpterra, Villicana, Ecluse, Estrella, and more, have estate-grown wines, right in the Paso Robles AVA. Quality grapes plus passionate winemaking equals great – if unheralded – wine.

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Why in the world would I make up something like White Zin in South Africa? Actually, it’s been around for a while.  But, as in many traumas that we experience in life, I had blanked it out of my memory.  A series of events over the last several weeks brought this dismal (my opinion) fact back to my consciousness, and I’m finally addressing it head on.

When the Wineaux Guy and I went to the Paso Robles Zin Fest last month, the one wine that we didn’t taste was the Zinfandel Rosé.  And it’s not because we turned up our respective noses to it; it’s because we just didn’t get to any of them in the crush (haha) of people and while tasting the wines of some fifty-plus wineries.  Even our livers are limited.

Being in the middle of all of that Zin and all of the followup postings reminded me of a South African wine writer who visited the United States some time ago and was enthralled with a new, slightly sweet, refreshing wine made from uniquely American grapes.  You guessed it. White Zinfandel. What? You didn’t hear my scream of anguish as  I read those words?!?

Well as it turns out, Zinfandel is a new star in Africa and as of two years ago, one producer began making White Zin as a serious part of their very respected portfolio of wines.  Not only that, but apparently there are a bunch (haha) of up-and-coming young South African winemakers who are doing to White Zin what we wish that American winemakers had done years ago; they’re tackling it head on to make it a serious contender in the Rosé – and overall wine – world.

Gasp.

Let’s go back to the first winery I was speaking of just a minute ago.  Its name is Blaauwklippen, and they began their White Zin experiment with the 2007 vintage.  What’s interesting – at least to my eyes and is the complete antithesis of American White Zin producers – they are using a green bottle and though I’ve only been able to look at it in pictures, the wine actually looks, well, *white*!  One more bit of trivia is that while the words “White Zinfandel” appears on the label, they describe it as a “Zinfandel Blanc de Noir” in their written material.

All of my searches could find only this one winery with a current vintage, but more are certain to follow if the success of Blaauwklippen is any indication.

And I’m going to do the unthinkable – tell the story about the Rosé tasting that the Vegas Wineaux Wine Club had last year.  I know I had it *somewhere* in the lost files , but I’m writing this as a reminder.  We had a Sunday brunch blind tasting of six different pink wines, one of which was a (aieeee!) White Zin.  It’s pretty fair to say that quite a few of the members of the club are palate snobs…myself included.  So the pressure was on.  Without naming names, less than half of the participants figured out which one was the White Zin.  ’Nuff said.

Tonight I’m going to be enjoying turkey breast, a salad, and a nice, budget-friendly Pinot Noir.  Not a drop of White Zin in sight.  But that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of America’s best-selling wine varietal in this blog.

Later on I’ll tell you about the site that has many recipes based on White Zin.  Oh the humanity!

Stay tuned!…

Oh! I almost forgot!  I got some of my information from this really terrific little site called Stellenbauchery, a South Africa Wine Adventure, the diary of a young American woman named Julia Burke who relates her adventures living in South Africa during the current harvest season as an intern.  This story is South Africa’s take on White Zin – Zinfandel Blanc de Noir – is a terrific read, as is the rest of her blog.  Too bad her internship is coming to an end.  She makes the adventures there fun.  I’m telling you – it’s a movie in the making!

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If it weren’t in a gazillion different newspapers, I never would have believed it.

South African vineyard owners are having a problem with monkeys. Baboons, to be exact. Apparently, Baboons really like wine grapes, and they have turned into marauding hordes. (I always wanted to use that in a sentence!) Wine growers are having a beast of a time trying to keep the baboons away from the ripening grapes. This is fall in South Africa and harvest is here. But it may not add to much with the baboons eating the grapes. While gophers, squirrels, deer, and rabbits are the vermin that American grape growers have to deal with – they’ve never had to deal with baboons!

Don’t believe me? Here’s the story from the Associated Press:

JOHANNESBURG – Baboons, it seems, prefer pinot noir. They also like a nice chardonnay. Largely undeterred by electric fences, hundreds of wild baboons in South Africa’s prized wine country are finding the vineyards of ripe, succulent grapes to be an “absolute bonanza,” said Justin O’Riain of the University of Cape Town.

Winemakers have resorted to using noisemakers and rubber snakes to try to drive the baboons off during harvest season.

“The poor baboons are driven to distraction,” said O’Riain, who works in the university’s Baboon Research Unit.

“As far as baboons are concerned, the combination of starch and sugar is very attractive — and that’s your basic grape,” he said.

Growers say the picky primates are partial to sweet pinot noir grapes, adding to the winemakers’ woe: Pinot noir sells for more than the average merlot or cabernet sauvignon.

“They choose the nicest bunches, and you will see the ones they leave on the ground. If you taste them, they are sour,” said Francois van Vuuren, farm manager at La Terra de Luc vineyards, 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Cape Town. “They eat the sweetest ones and leave the rest.”

Baboons have raided South Africa’s vineyards in the past, but farmers say this year is worse than previous ones because the primates have lost their usual foraging areas due to wildfires and ongoing expansion of grape-growing areas.

Out of a 12-ton harvest, 1,100 to 1,300 pounds (500 to 600 kilograms) go to waste at La Terra de Luc because of the baboons.

In the Constantia wine-producing area alone, up to $34,800 worth of the crop has been lost annually in previous years, according to the Baboon Research Unit.

One farm, La Petite Ferme, was hit particularly hard after fires in the Franschhoek wine-producing region devastated large swaths of land, burning up the baboons’ normal foraging areas. The primates then descended on its chardonnay crop, eating or destroying up to three tons of grapes.

La Petite Ferme usually produces 12 to 15 barrels of chardonnay a year, but this season only managed to produce three, said farm manager Mark Dendy-Young.

“It was bad timing,” Dendy-Young said.

Sometimes the baboons even get an alcohol kick — by feasting on discarded grape skins that have fermented in the sun. After gobbling up the skins, the animals stumble around before sleeping it off in a shady spot.

During harvest season from January to March, winemakers put up serious front-line defenses. Some try to scare off the baboons by blowing into horns called “vuvuzelas” that are often used by South Africa’s soccer fans.

Electric fencing often doesn’t work because baboons can dig underneath it or swing above it from trees to get to the vineyards, O’Riain said. They also test the fence for weak spots. If they’re shocked, they’ll scream, but they’ll likely return the next day, he said.

Like other farm managers, Van Vuuren has noticed that the baboons follow a pattern, usually arriving about 10 a.m.

“Every day, they come at the same time. … The guys chase the baboons, blowing vuvuzelas, and they chase them back up the mountain. But sometimes they only move a few meters (yards) and then they sit there, looking at you.”

Sakkie Lourens, manager of Cabriere farm, uses rubber snakes to scare the baboons away.

“I put them all over where the vines are, and since then, I haven’t seen a single baboon,” he said.

Ryno Reyneke of the Cape Chamonix farm said the attacks peak at harvest time. He hires baboon monitors to scare the animals away with noise. Some farmers also plant grapes outside their fence line, a sacrificial offering that reduces the number of primate trespassers.

The Baboon Research Unit is pioneering a high-tech approach in which a collar with a sensor is placed on a member of a baboon troop. When the collar passes a particular point, an “incoming baboon” text message is sent to a cell phone, prompting someone to race to the fence and defend the vineyard from the troop.

O’Riain doesn’t think the problem will go away because vineyards are expanding into the lower slopes of the mountains, the baboons’ traditional foraging grounds.

“Where there’s a mountain, there’s a baboon,” O’Riain said. “As we take up more and more of their land, the conflict increases.”a

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