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Wine-wise, California has been getting a bad rap lately.

Some people believe the state epitomizes two of the global industry's more dubious trends: the proliferation of insanely priced trophy labels, and the fever for corporate buyouts that seems designed only to ram more of those cheap, generic-tasting megabrands onto the shelves.

Then there's Joel Peterson's sanguine assessment. Mr. Peterson, 60, is founder of Ravenswood, the successful Sonoma winery best known for three things - top-class zinfandels, the slogan "No wimpy wines" and a devout following that is the envy of the wine business.

To hear him tell it, the changes in the industry have been good for consumers, especially those looking for value at the lower end.

"If you've been drinking wines that are in the under-$15 category, it's improved your life substantially," he said in an interview last week in Toronto.

Those generic-tasting wines conjured up in boardrooms "actually taste quite good."

They also are a key driver, he says, behind the current wine-drinking explosion. "You see a lot of young people who can now afford a bottle of wine that tastes good. It used to be that you could drink a lot of bad wine in that category. It's hard to pick up a bad wine now."

As for the pricier end of the spectrum, Mr. Peterson says quality hasn't suffered, as evidenced by the continuing success of such legendary labels as Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

And, despite early fears to the contrary, Ravenswood's quality has survived the consolidation wave intact, a fact apparent to anyone tasting the wines.

Six years ago, the winery was bought by Constellation Brands, the acquisitive Fairport, N.Y.-based company that has since swallowed Hardys, Robert Mondavi and Canada's Vincor, and is now the world's largest wine producer.

The $148-million (U.S.) sale wasn't Mr. Peterson's idea; Ravenswood had gone public two years earlier, and the other major shareholders, intent on cashing out, forced his hand.

But, rather than stroll into the California sunset with his multimillion-dollar payout or start over with an overpriced boutique luxury label (like many of his predecessors), Mr. Peterson stayed on, and stayed the course, crafting a broad range of products priced between about $15 and $80 (Canadian) a bottle that have continued to garner acclaim.

In fact, Mr. Peterson's positive take on the state of less expensive wines is notable given the fact he has a reputation for making some of the United States' most distinctive and regionally expressive wines.

Ravenswood's signature grape, zinfandel, has been grown in the United States for almost 200 years, which is why it's known as "America's heritage grape," the popular libation of fortune seekers during the Gold Rush. In Italy, the only other country with significant plantings of zinfandel, more commonly called primitivo there, the vine has a significantly shorter history.

Few grapes are easier to identify in a blind tasting than zinfandel. Almost always thick in texture and inky-purple in colour, the wine is dense with flavours of raspberry jam and peppery spice, often framed by gripping acidity and smooth tannins. It is the ideal red for slow-cooked, sweet-spicy barbecue and a good match for grilled, rare steaks. Even spicy Asian food makes a nice complement.

Ravenswood produces an array of zinfandels from all over California, many sourced from vines between 80 and 125 years of age. That is positively ancient in the wine world - and significant, because the older a vine gets, the fewer, but more flavour-concentrated, berries it produces.

The average age of the vines used in the $24 Lodi blend, a superb wine for the money, for example, is 87 years. The vineyard used for his most expensive zinfandel, the $76 Old Hill, was planted in 1884.

Mr. Peterson, who in his trademark Hawaiian shirt could pass for Mike Love of the Beach Boys, now employs a team of winemakers, but he still signs off on all the blends. He is blessed with what some have described as the wine-tasting equivalent of perfect pitch, a talent documented in a 1991 book by David Darlington about the zinfandel's rise, originally called Angels' Visits but since renamed simply Zin.

Which is what one might expect from a guy who started studying fine wine in earnest at the age of 10. The son of wine enthusiasts who were also both chemists (his mother worked on atomic-bomb research), he would help his father take notes for the latter's wine-tasting club in the 1950s.

"We would sit down on Friday nights with 12 glasses of wine and I would have to tell him what they tasted like. I'd say, 'Apples.' He'd say, 'What kind of apples?' "

The young Mr. Peterson also mastered another wine-tasting talent early on: spitting. "He actually measured the wine in my glasses with a graduated cylinder and then measured the wine in my spit bucket" to make sure only the minimum made it down his throat.

Mr. Peterson, who started professional life as an immunologist, founded Ravenswood in 1976 with partner Reed Foster and $4,000 (U.S.). In their first year, they made 426 cases.

Today, the winery's annual production has reached one million cases. About half of that is a $20 (Canadian) product called Vintners Blend, the world's bestselling zinfandel, which the irreverent Mr. Peterson is fond of calling "Château Cash Flow."

Among his other well-worn lines (repeated again during the interview) is, "Wines belong on the table, not on a pedestal," a swipe at three-figure California trophy wines.

The winery's success is remarkable not only for its popularity at a broad range of prices. Ravenswood also enjoys an impressive cult following, thanks in no small part to its eye-catching logo - a sketch of three ravens joined at the talons.

The label crops up in more than its share of movies, such as the current hit Knocked Up. "It got a full camera shot," Mr. Peterson says.

It was also prominently displayed, and consumed, by Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson in 2006's You, Me and Dupree. "When Dupree and the wife are sitting there, getting happy and drunk, they're drinking a bottle of Ravenswood. In fact, every wine in that entire movie was a bottle of Ravenswood. It was hilarious." And, Mr. Peterson stresses, it wasn't a paid product placement.

Devotion to the logo has been known to go to extremes. People regularly show up at the winery tasting room to flaunt their Ravenswood tattoos, he notes. "I've seen a hundred tattoos. It's a little scary."

That enthusiastic fan base has enabled Ravenswood to fetch steep prices for its more expensive bottles, which may seem out of sync for a quintessentially American wine that cannot be - as cabernet and pinot noir often are - measured against the great red archetypes of Europe, such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Tuscany.

But Mr. Peterson insists zinfandel has every right to fetch those prices and, in fact, remains a bargain because it's proven to be the most interesting and well-suited vine for California's soil.

"We've planted a stake in the ground, and this is the right stake."

*****

Tasting notes

Ravenswood Vintners Blend Zinfandel 2005

$19.95 in Ontario

Fresh raspberries leap out

of the glass. The wine is lifted

by firm acidity and peppery spice. Very good zin value.

Ravenswood Belloni

Zinfandel 2004

$49.95

Damp earth and wild berries

on the nose presage the palate, which adds notes of tobacco

and spice. Terrific.

Ravenswood Old Hill

Zinfandel 2004

$76

There's a syrup-like density here from low-yielding,

120-year-old vines, powerful,

tannic and tight, with an almost

port-like flavour and faint

residual sweetness. I would

have preferred a tad more acidity.

Beppi Crosarial