Blush or White????

[mssobe]

Can someone please settle a "dispute" between I and another bartender. Is White Zinfandel a Blush wine or a White wine. Any answer especially those with a valid explination will be greatly appreciated.

[Kcwhippet]

Whitw Zinfandel is a blush wine, not a white wine. The reason is that Zinfandel is a dark grape which normally makes a red wine. To make a blush wine, the winemaker crushes the grapes and gets the juice (which is white) away from the dark skins that contain all the pigment in the grape. Just a bit of the pigment goes along with the juice to give the wine a bit of a blush. Incidentally, the term "blush" was coined by a really great gentleman in the wine industry, Jerry Mead, some years back as a new name for a rose style wine made by Mill Creek Winery. By the way, white wines come from white grapes, red wines come from dark grapes, and now you know that blush wines also come from dark grapes. White Zinfandel is not the only blush wine either. Tonight I had a blush wine from Spain by Vega Sindoa made from Garnacha and Cabernet Sauvignon.