So...I just got my Ridge ATP shipment this weekend and was reading the brochure. There was a nice article in there by DaveGates and he talks about Pribidrag. AhHa....got Dave in a rare mistake....it'sTribidrag...any doofus knows that!!
Turn's out...Dave is (of course) right. The story of the origins of Zin, involving our very own CaroleMeredith, are pretty well known. In Dec 2001, her Croatian colleagues found one old vine in the IvicaRadunic vnyd near the town of KastelNovi that matched perfectly the DNA of Zinfandel/Primitivo. Later another 9 vines of this now-named Crljenak Kastelanski were identified. Later on, when they were able to do DNA on non-living material, a bit of a leaf in an old Croatian herbarium, called Tribidrag was found to be identical by DNA to Zinfandel. This is the historical name that is used in JancisRobinson's GrapeVine book. She also mentions that another old vine in the garden of a very old lady, south of Split, found in 2002, that was known as Pribidrag and found to be identical by DNA to Zinfandel.
DaveGates, in the Ridge brochure, mentions that after 2001, a pair of old vines that were shading the dirt floor of a simple outdoor cafe, had DNA that matched Zinfandel. These two vines were also called Pribidrag. So...guess DaveGates was correct in his usage of Pribidrag after all.
This Summer, he planted in Block 18, of LyttonWest, these Croatian vines of 2 Pribidrag/1 Crljenak/1 Primitivo to see how they do under identical growing conditions. This is reported in the Ridge blog:
RidgePribidrag
Anyway, interesting/confusing stuff.
Tom