Jeez yourself! Is that high horse permanently sutured to your posterior?
I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of hops, but I don't think you should be smirking.
Those of us who enjoy old vine California Zinfandels appreciate that these vines didn't get plowed under in the 70's, when the demand for "red" Zinfandels continued to be low.
From Wikipedia:
The demand for White Zinfandel resulted in extended commercial viability of old vine Zinfandel vineyards, which saved them from being ripped out.[4] When the fine wine boom started in the 1980s, demand for red Zinfandel picked up considerably and these vineyards became prized for the low yields from century-old vines.
And from the linked SF Chronicle article:
Wine snobs like to rag on sweet, pink White Zinfandel. Don't.
If you're an old-vine Zin fan and you're in St. Helena, consider visiting Sutter Home Winery -- which reinvented White Zinfandel in 1972 and was selling 1.5 million cases per year of it by 1984 -- and kissing the ground to thank the winery for saving some of the state's most historic vineyards from being ripped out and replanted.
"God bless those people who made White Zinfandel," says Jeff Cohn, winemaker for Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda. "Otherwise, we would have nothing. Without Sutter Home, we would've had nothing."
