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- Old vines are stingy with their production but the juice they do give is exceptional. It's a classic case of quality over quantity, when you want to drink less but drink better.
- Old vines are stingy with their production but the juice they do give is exceptional. It's a classic case of quality over quantity, when you want to drink less but drink better.
I have a thing for old vines.
But before I go on about why they're so cool, let me give you the bad news first. They're gnarly. Crotchety. Less vigorous. Challenging to prune and harvest. And a little stingy with their production of grapes, besides.
Doesn't sound like all that much to love, does it?
Maybe not, until you consider the flip side of what's less appealing about them.
They're gnarly the way that an old-timer's skin is gnarly: aged and grooved and weather-worn. And beautiful.
They're crotchety the way grandparents are crotchety when they know -- they just know -- us kids are headed for trouble and they'll have to do the cleaning up.
They're less vigorous, sure, but when you're 70 or 90 or 100+ years old, you'll be less vigorous too.
Yes, they're challenging to prune and harvest and there's a very good reason for it: many of them were planted, in goblet fashion the way vines were planted back then, before the machines were even invented that work best in uniform vineyards with straight rows, evenly-spaced vines and predictable heights. Old vines are lower to the ground and involve no wires or other system of support, thank you very much.
If you want their goodness, you're gonna have to work for it.
And that -- with the goodness -- is where the tide turns.
Count me in for that, for the pure pleasure of it. Count me in, too, for what old vines say about the history they've witnessed over the span of their lives.
Let's look for this history in zinfandel, particularly in California. I'll fall for a good story any day, and zin tells them by the dozen. Here are six examples I learned recently, to complement last weekend's zin recommendations.
... At the recent ZinEX (Zinfandel Experience) event in San Francisco, Scott Harvey poured samples from his 1869 Zinfandel, whose vineyard was originally planted 148 years ago in Amador County. Harvey described the layout of the property and the logic of the grapes that were planted around the residence: a variety of grapes planted close to the house were for personal use (tokaji grapes for everyday wine, for example, and concord grapes for making jams) while larger plantings of the same grapes were planted further away.
... "Pets and zins" is what old-timers called vineyard blends of petite sirah and zinfandel, and petite sirah itself was pronounced "petti-serra," said Ed St. John of Pedroncelli Winery, whose family has been making zinfandel since 1934.
... Back in the day, Napa's vineyards were planted to 70% zinfandel, according to Tres Goetting of Robert Biale Vineyards, including their Old Kraft Vineyard which was planted in 1886 by German immigrant winemaker Franz Kraft. Today, zinfandel plantings have dropped to just 2%.
... Pinot Noir often gets tagged with the "finicky" label though several winemakers and growers, like Aaron Piotter at Bear Flag Wine and Ryan Decker at Rodney Strong Vineyards, pointed to zinfandel's notoriously uneven ripening and the challenge of timing the harvest pick just right. Decker remembers old-timer stories about zin and how they made their pick decision: throw a grape on the ground and if it bounces, it isn’t ready. "I love that," Decker said. "But for me it’s about using your eyes. These aren't consistent vineyards. There are patches [of ripening] here and there."
... "People say zinfandel isn't a noble variety, but we think it is," said Tom Hinde, winemaker at Angry Bunch Wines. "It's our noble variety. It doesn't have to be this massive port-style wine. It can be elegant and refined."
... When you think "zinfandel" and "California," a few producers jump immediately to mind, especially Ravenswood, Rosenblum and Ridge. Ridge Vineyards' viticulturalist Will Thomas described what his team learned from a vine map of their 40 acres that was completed recently: about 60% of the vines are zinfandel, and the rest are a mix of white grapes along with petite sirah, alicante, and mataro. "The vineyards were planted with intent, and there was a pattern to what they were trying to do," Thomas said. "They were rock star farmers who knew what was up. It's a testament to them that these vineyards are still there."
