The 'Old Grapes New Ferment' display tells the story of Zinfandel and highlights the stuck fermentation at Sutter Home that spawned the white Zinfandel wine craze. (photo: Wines and Vines)
The 'Old Grapes New Ferment' display tells the story of Zinfandel and highlights the stuck fermentation at Sutter Home that spawned the white Zinfandel wine craze. (photo: Wines and Vines)

Smithsonian opens American wine exhibit

  • by Ann Filmer

Wine display is one part of wider look at the evolution of American food.

One important element of “Food, Transforming the American Table,” a new, two-year exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, is how Americans came to embrace wine and how the domestic wine industry responded to that growing demand. 

The exhibit first focuses on the effort to improve wine quality, following Prohibition, by researchers at UC Davis. Included in the exhibit is a display of a 1975 bottle of white Zinfandel that also recounts UC Davis Professor Carole Meredith’s conclusion that the grape is the same variety as the Croatian grape Crljenak Kastelanski.

The display is one part of a wider look at the evolution of American food. Read the full article about the exhibit in Wines & Vines, by Andrew Adams.

Media contact:

  • Ann Filmer, senior director of communications, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis, 530-754-6788, afilmer@ucdavis.edu