By DCist contributor Amy Monroe

There’s no disputing the fierce and even patriotic love of zinfandel among certain members of the American wine-drinking public. Indeed, Carole Migden, a California state senator from San Francisco, introduced a bill in February to make zinfandel California’s official state wine. But following objections from some of the state’s makers of chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon (all of which earn more sales dollars than zin), lawmakers instead proclaimed zinfandel a “historic” state wine — lest anyone think it more important than its vinous brethren.

The diluted official nod notwithstanding, many wine writers share Midgen’s fervor for the seemingly all-American zinfandel, which was one of the very first grapes to thrive in California more than 100 years ago. On the eve of each and every Independence Day, they rush to anoint it America’s wine — a wine that’s an ideal match for Fourth of July barbecues.

Their doing so is a little like claiming that actor Michael J. Fox is really Alex P. Keaton — the Ohio-born-and-bred, red-blooded-American teenager whom Fox played on Family Ties. Although it may be tempting to equate Fox with APK and zinfandel with a purely American grape, Fox and zinfandel are foreigners who gained fame in the California sun by portraying red-white-and-blue characters. Fox’s Canadian heritage is evident to anyone with an Internet connection or a subscription to US Weekly. And although winemakers and wine drinkers long thought that zinfandel was a grape unique to America, ampelographers recently agreed that it most likely hails from Croatia.

Why, then, is zin seemingly always a first-round draft pick when it comes time to break out the barbecue for the Fourth?