Old Vine Zin....yes & double yes!!
Old Vine Zinfandel generally promotes mental images of ‘free standing’ vines with no trellis system. Not so in this OVZ example in St. Helena, Napa Valley
“They’re gnarly. Crotchety. Less vigorous. Challenging to prune and harvest. And a little stingy with their production of grapes....”
So ‘older is better’?
What is it about Old Vine Zinfandel that garners attention of both aficionado and average consumer alike?
Could it be that there is still an appreciation for “old” (meaning ‘items of historic importance’ or ‘aged products connoting experience or refinement)?
It it that ‘technically speaking’, old vines (in general, not varietal specific) are ‘self-regulating’ in specific reference to both the reduced quantity of grapes produced as well as the quality, concentration or ‘nuance’ of the grapes they produce?
Finally, could it be that ‘old vines’ simple produce better or more flavorful or characteristic grapes resulting in the same or similar characters of wine?
Answer: Of course, a little of all and yes…yes….and YES!!
Nostalgia dovetailing with historic ranches in wine country California.
In my old ‘Cucamonga days’, the Zinfandels being produced out of California were either thin and light in color (‘white Zin’ had not come into play quite yet) or they were highly alcoholic and lacked balance, expressive fruit, judicious oak aging or a consistency of quality with relatively few producers in the ‘Zin’ game.
Rombauer was launched in that first vintage of mine (harvest 1980) and, although there were obviously producers of Zinfandel from vineyards of up to 80 years old at the time, the main crux of Zin production was more generic red wine blending and still a tremendous volume of ‘jug’ Zinfandel dominating the varietal’s shelf exposure.
It’s funny, but we must remember that it was very common to see Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon selling for less than $10 on the shelf (in fact, our winery tasting room sold Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in 1983 for $2.95/bottle!).
Cucamonga Peak in the background, this Southern California history bastion of Zinfandel (40,000 acres) is not home to less than 100 acres of total grapevines. This particular vineyard, ‘Lopez Ranch’, is home to the grapes for Carol Shelton’s ‘Monga Zin’.
But Zinfandel, I mean the really great Zin of our current era were not known but in very small circles.
In 1980, wines from Turley (founded 1993), Ravenswood (4 years old in 1980), Rombauer (who had not had a first vintage yet), and so many of the other greats like Peachy Canyon in Paso Robles, didn’t open their doors until 1988. Other standouts must be referenced before moving on as one can NOT engage in a California Zinfandel conversation without speaking of Ridge Vineyards, Seghesio, Chateau Montellena, Renwood, Heitz, Dutton Goldfield, Cline, Chappelet, Pedroncelli, Dry Creek, and Jessie’s Grove (who presents a marvelous representation of what 130 year old vines can produce from Lodi).
The reality is that “Old Vine Zinfandel” is a recent phenom, becoming an industry and consumer ‘sweetheart’ only over the last 35 years……..that’s young….in Old Vine Zin standards!
So is older better? Yes if the vines are cared for with great tenderness and detail. Yes if the vintner pays close attention to natures balance in the vineyard as ‘old vines’ have a tendency to be more susceptible to disease, draught, harsh environmental conditions such as heat waves, etc. Yes, if the grapes are grown in such a manner as to ‘ripen’ the fruit rather than simply ‘dehydrate’ the grape in a desire to gain high grape sugars for higher alcohol wines (still a challenge for some growers and inexperienced winemakers).
Caveat: Saying that ‘older is better’ should read more like, ‘older has a greater possibility of being better only considering the fact that older is self-regulating so ‘older’ vines are as vigorous where younger vines tend to be vigorous and produce larger quantities of lower quality……IF they are not managed is such a way to not over-produce.
Without the color in the photograph, it is impossible to know whether this is 2020 or 1921!
This simply means that instead of the vine regulating itself, the farmer must be the one ‘regulating’ what the young Zinfandel vine produces (involving cluster thinning, more aggressive management of irrigation [assuming not ‘dry-farmed’, another topic for later], and the time period of berry sizing between flowering and Veraison, is managed extremely well so as to not allow the berries to become large, producing lower phenolic concentration [i.e.: color, tannins, and other flavor and aromatic compounds]).
Some might even say that old vine Zinfandel is the ‘lazy winemaker’s’ route to successful Zinfandel production….the vines do the majority of the work with much less management than young vines demand (yup, just like our children).
What ‘old vine is….and is not’
Northern California, from Sonoma to Napa, Lodi to the Sierra Foothills, is the playground of the most sought after Old Vine Zin vineyards on earth.
In the early 1980’s, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, now the TTB or Tax and Trade Bureau) began to review the term “Old Vine Zinfandel” as it became a ‘category’ of fine wine label marketing.
I remember my own though process that if I wanted to use that term I could expect either delays on my government label approval or a rejection of my application to get a new wine label approved for use (as all wine label terminology is highly regulated).
After what seemed to be years of debate, the issue slid into the background of the regulatory battles of ‘label law’ as there was not enough historic evidence to determine what exactly “old vine” meant. As an industry, we could not agree or determine what constituted “Old Vines”.
Although it was generally agreed that vines of greater than 25 years would be ‘softly’ considered old (in “grapevine years”) but that it would be up to the integrity of the producer themselves to determine what they would label as ‘old vine’.
Perfectly balanced, perfectly aged: the call to bring Old Vine Zinfandel into the modern age of winemaking
Many years later, in the early 2000’s, the issue came up again as Joel Peterson, known as the “Godfather of Zinfandel” helped to lead an attempt to better define what ‘old vine’ meant in regards to label regulations…..but that attempt fell by the wayside once more.
Most of us agreed (those of us in the ‘Old Vine Business’) that vines became ‘old’ after 25-50 years’ and that vineyards were more ‘ancient’ between 50-100. Rarely are there surviving vines older than 100 but there are several highly sought after small vineyard blocks in California touting over 100 (a few listed below at the end of this article).
One last mention; Old Vine is a term that is generally reserved for very specific vine age that should be no less than 25 years of grapevine age but in reality most expect vines of 50-75 years to consider it ‘truly’ old vine. Again, it does not mean that great Zinfandel cannot be produced from much younger vines but certainly we have witnessed an intense passion of flavor from the respect winemakers have for these ‘old trees’.
Is it the producer…or the vineyard?
Old Vine Zinfandel comes in a myriad of shapes and sizes, such as this Old Vine Zinfandel in the heart of the Lodi AVA on Peltier Ave.
Both……but….it is really the vineyard that makes this category of winemaking so seductive, so alluring, so mysterious and imaginative.
Vineyards such as Lodi’s Kirschenmann Vineyard (owned by Turley winemaker Tegan Passalacqua), Oakly, CA Evenghelo Vineyard produced by Morgan Twain-Peterson (Bedrock Wine Company), or 115 year-old Lytton Springs Vineyard by Ridge become ‘weather patterns unto themselves’ with an magnetic attraction rivaled by few vineyards in California, much less the world.
The gems from California’s ‘vineyard’ based productions of Old Vine Zinfandel lead the topic of wine excellence away from the producers, per se, into the specific vineyards established in history. Families such as the Saini’s of Dry Creek, Russian River McFadden Family Old Vine Zin planted in 1971 (just hitting the 50 year mark), or the Mauritson’s of Sonoma with over 150 years of passion (I’ve read Cameron Mauritson’s Thesis, ‘The Fruiting and Berry Chemistry Responses of Zinfandel Grapes to Cluster Thinning as a testament to the continuing passion of farming excellence in Old Vine Zinfandel).
There is something quite strikingly different about the Old Vine Zinfandel farmers and producers as they have a tendency to be, well, a little different. They tend to not be directed by whims of modern thought (regarding winemaking or farming other than they do hold fast to a technical desire to farm a vine into antiquity). They tend to be a little more reclusive (as growers), and definitely live lives of greater humility, not desiring as much notoriety in a broad sense.
Sunset walks in Northern California Old Vine Zin Country
My friend David Divine (who farmed one of the vineyards in my photographs of the Clements Hill/Dogtown area of Lodi for over 40 years), simply farmed the old vines planted in 1962 (I was 1 year old) without anyone but a few local coffee shop pals knowing who he was or the magnificent work he crafted each year in the head-trained old vine Zin he managed until 2018. This particular vineyard, now owned by Michael-David Winery of Lodi (of the famed ‘7-Deadly Zins’ acclaim), is one of the most meticulously farmed old vine Zinfandel vineyards in the state of California. A prize among prizes.
There is something about Old Vines…..yes, even mysterious and magical, as though ‘stars-align’ when vines (specifically Zinfandel) reach an age where the ‘bark’ of their trunk and arms splinter out phalanges of gnarled protrusions……there’s a chemistry that adjusts when the vine draws liquid through the xylem tissue of its inner workings that creates an intensity, triggering greater berry intentsity in the resultant wines…softer and more voluminous tannins in the finish…..a greater integration of oak barrel chemistry with the grapes phenolic composition.
Yes, mysterious and magical because many of the attributes associated with Old Vine Zinfandel production are unexplainable, that is, that no person scientifically has identified exactly the influences associated with wine produced from these ‘witnesses of the past’.
One of the most striking Old Vine Zinfandel vineyards I have photographed is in the Dogtown, Clements Hills area of the Lodi AVA. This vineyard, now owned by Michael-David Vineyards, is 160+ acres of pure nostalgic bliss!
What i really think about old vine zin
Looking back the 40 vintages of winemaking, my old Cucamonga roots shaped my ideas and gave me a deep appreciation for the challenges and rewards of growing and producing Old Vine Zinfandel.
20 years ago I moved to Northern California and all the while learned a deeper and greater love for the craft of Old Vine Zin…to the extent it became a major focus on my career.
In 2004, I drew on a napkin back a shape that would become a popular wine brand in the US. The 3 letters I drew on that shape, OVZ, I would later attempt to trademark for the company that managed only to find that I had missed the trademark by only 6 months for the acronym to ‘Old Vine Zinfandel’.
Fast forward, a little over a year ago, historic winery operator and Old Vine Zinfandel producer Erich Russel from Russel Family Vineyards (the owner of the trademark I lost the OVZ trademark to), reached out to ask if I would consider collaborating on an Old Vine Zinfandel with him.
Of course, my answer was ‘Hell Yeah!’ and the new design I reworked for Rabbit Ridge Zinfandel O.V.Z is the testament to the history of 2 California Old Vine Zin makers.
The first vintage of this work is represented in our prototype ‘micro’ production that can be found on the onemakerwins.com website and pictured here below.
It’s not Ridge Lytton Springs but for the $28 price tag, we’re very pleased to be dedicating a ‘new effort’ to an ‘old category’.
Listed below are a few of my favorite Old Vine Zinfandels from California…..for what it’s worth!
Unique and visually distinctive is the contrast between uniform rows and the gnarled, non-trellised arms of an Old Vine Zinfandel Vineyards
Nicholas Karavidas is owner and winemaker of Élever Vineyards & OneMaker Wines, Principal Consultant for Consulting Wine, Intl. and the Designer of Wine & Food Pairing tool “Flavor Shapes”. 2022 marks 41 vintages of wine production as a winemaker with the majority of his time designing and managing winery designs as well as vineyard and wine family business strategies. If you can’t find Nick analyzing wine, you will certainly find him analyzing his market, reading more on technical topics of wine & wine marketing, researching the impact of international trade on his craft, wandering around hard to access vineyard sites, and last but certainly not least, how to be a better father and husband to his wife Heather, his 6 children and 8 grandchildren.
Nick’s Picks
Green & Red - Napa Valley
Macchia - Lodi
Turley
Mauritson - Sonoma
Russel Family - Paso Robles