Tribidrag. That’s the newly revealed historic name for a grape we know remarkably well: Zinfandel. Meredith had asked federal regulators to approve the first Tribidrag to be made in modern times.[…]

All grist for the nerdiest of the nerdy - if not for the fact that Meredith is also the vine geneticist who sleuthed out the mystery of Zinfandel’s origins, finding it identical to an obscurity in a single vineyard on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, where it was known as Crljenak Kastelanski. […]

Meanwhile, Zinfandel’s - hence Tribidrag’s - history kept stretching back in time, enough so that Tribidrag was used as Zinfandel’s official name in wine authority Jancis Robinson’s new book, “Wine Grapes.” Historian Ambroz Tudor uncovered references as far back as the early 1400s; Tribidrag wine was traded with Venice across the Adriatic - significant enough to be referenced by name.

“What to me makes this so sweet,” Meredith says, is that “not only did we figure out where in Europe Zinfandel came from, but it was important. It wasn’t a junk grape. It had nobility to it.”

Read more at SFGate