Zinfandel as the California State Wine?

There is an effort in the California legislature to declare Zinfandel the California State Wine. This has apparently gotten some people up in arms who thing Cabnert Sauvignon is a better wine than Zinfandel. (here , free signup required).

I have been thinking about this and I guess I like the idea of Zinfandel as the California State Wine. What does it mean for a wine to be the state wine. The official California State Bird is the California Valley Quail. Why was it made the state bird? I don’t think I have ever seen one. It certainly is not the most widespread, most common bird in California. I don’t think it is the most beautiful bird we have in California either.

Cabernet Sauvignon is my favorite red wine, and California makes some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon’s in the world. When you think about Cabernet Sauvignon though, you think about Bordeaux as well as California. Bordeaux was producing great Cabernets hundreds of years before there was a single Cabernet Sauvignon vine in California.

On the other hand, Zinfandel is a grape that became famous in California. When you think about Zinfandel, the first place you think about is California. Now Zinfandel actually is a European grape from Croatia, but it became famous once it got to California, so it seems reasonable to me to make it the California State Wine. Now if we could just get more California wine makes to stop making overripe Zinfandel….