Breaking news in ampelography (the study of grape genetic origins and classifications): a new "Eve" of Zinfandel has been discovered! A Tribidrag leaf (existing only as a dried herbarium specimen in the Natural History Museum in Split, Croatia) also known as Pribidrag, is now identified as Crljenak Kastelanski (i.e. in Croation "the black grape of Kastel"). Historical documents trace the cultivation of Tribidrag in Croatia back to the beginning of the 15th century. See http://www.springerlink.com/content/b161077101100317.
Tribidrag supposedly comes from the Greek and means 'early grape' or 'July grape'. The Italian name 'Primitivo' also refers to its earliness relative to other grapes in the region. As I understand it, we have Tribidrag & Pribidrag now as the earliest synonyms for Italian Primitivo which is also a synonym for American Zinfandel. Plavac Mali is the result of crossing offspring of crossing Zinfandel and Dobricic, another Croatian variety.
In 2001, Carole Meredith published (together with Univ. of Zagreb collaborators Ivan Pejic and Edi Maletic) the finding that Crljenak Kastelanski is what we Americans call Zinfandel. See >http://www.actahort.org/books/603/603_34.htm and >http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/winter2003/wine.pdf
An interesting "insider note" from Carole Meredith about the usefulness of dried herbarium speciments on http://wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51255:
"Yes, the Tribidrag DNA was extracted from the leaves of an herbarium specimen in the Natural History Museum in Split, Croatia. Herbarium specimens are representative examples of a particular plant that have been pressed and dried. They are quite dead. Dried leaf tissue can be a great source of high quality DNA. When my lab was analyzing grape varieties from other countries, we couldn't use fresh samples because the USDA plant quarantine regulations prohibit the importation of living grapevine tissue unless it goes through a quarantine station for disease testing. That takes 2 years! So we figured out how to chemically dry leaf samples using anhydrous calcium chloride. This was quite legal since the leaf tissue was no longer living. But the DNA was very well preserved."
In order to keep up with the times, I've added 2 new rows to my own grape varietals database: one for Tribidrag and another for Pribidrag linking them to Crljenak Kastelanski. The synonym Kratosija which was previously attached to Primitivo is now attached to Crljenak Kastelanski. http://www.factual.com/ts/FEQqRu
Please let me know if you hear of any other grape varieties I've missed, I would welcome the news!