(PalatePress) - Mention Zinfandel to most wine consumers, and it’s quickly dismissed. It’s easy to see why. For starters, many Americans associate the variety with the cheap, sweet “blush” wines that became popular in the 1980s, like Sutter Home’s white Zinfandel. This style of wine will always have fans, but to my palate, it’s just too cloying. Most white Zinfandel tastes more like Kool-Aid than wine. Among consumers who know that Zinfandel can produce dry reds, many believe the variety inevitably produces monolithic, alcoholic fruit bombs. Avoiding such wines makes sense – it’s difficult to find pleasure in wines go down like cough syrup.