California’s great old vine Zinfandel vineyards

Nothing in the wine world fascinates me like California’s heritage vineyards. These vineyards have it all – history, romance and most of all, they are the source for distinctively intense and delicious wines. Perhaps my favorite wines.

These historic vineyards are uniquely Californian and should be preserved and protected. My gratitude to the farmers and ranchers who have maintained these treasures and to the producers such as Paul Draper, Mike Officer, Larry Turley, Joel Peterson and Morgan Twain-Peterson who continue to make this preservation commercially possible.

I’ve put a list of 60 or so vineyards together below. Quite a diverse list. These wines are not all Zinfandel by any means. Two Acres is mainly Mourvedre. Bedrock Vineyard is less than half Zinfandel. Most of the Vineyards have a good dose of Petite plus other “mixed blacks” including alicante bouschet, carignane and “whatever.”

I have my favorites – the bright and elegant wines from Scherrer Vineyard, the lush Carlisle Vineyard wines, the powerful Hayne and the intense Ueberroth. It’s interesting none of my favorites are from the same Appellation (they’re from Alexander Valley, RRV, Napa and Paso, respectively).

What are your favorites? What am I missing from the list below?

Alegria Vineyards, RRV, 1890
Bacchi Ranch, RRV, 1914
Bacigalupi, RRV, 1920
Barracia, Sonoma Valley 1892
Bedrock, Sonoma Valley, 1888
Belloni, RRV, 1920
Big River, Alexander, 1893
Buchignani Ranch, Alexander, 1955
Caboose, Alexander, 1899
Carlisle, RRV, 1927
Dickerson, Napa, 1930
Dina’s, RRV, 1910
Dolinsek Ranch, RRV, 1910
Duarte, Contra Costa, 1899
Dusi Ranch, Paso, 1923
Fanucchi-Wood, RRV, 1910
Fava Ranch, RRV, 1922
Forchini, RRV, 1910
Geyserville, Alexander, 1880
Giuseppe and Luisa, RRV, 1899
Gold Mine Ranch, Dry Creek, 1914
Hale’s, Dry Creek, 1955
Hayne, Napa Howell, 1903
Highwire, RRV, 1913
Jackass Hill, RRV, 1899
Jackass, RRV, 1899
Jimsomere, SCM, 1900
Jolene’s, RRV, 1905
Limerick Lane, Sonoma, 1911
Lorenzo’s, Dry Creek, 1909
Lytton Springs, Dry Creek, 1900
Mazzoni Ranch, Alexander, 1910
Montafi Ranch (Tom Feeney), RRV, 1926
Monte Rosa, Sonoma, 1890
Monte Rosso, Sonoma Valley, 1886
Mounts Ranch, Dry Creek, 1952
Nervo, Alexander, 1899
Old Hill Ranch, Sonoma Valley, 1880
Pagani Ranch, Sonoma Valley, 1910
Papera Ranch (Carlo’s), RRV, 1934
Pedroncelli, Dry Creek, 1927
Pesenti, Paso, 1923
Pietro’s Ranch, RRV, 1905
Ponzo, RRV, 1952
Puccioni, Sonoma, 1904
Rossi Ranch, Sonoma Valley, 1910
Scherrer, Alexander, 1912
Seghesio, Sonoma, 1902
Shaw, Sonoma, 1882
Stellwagen, Sonoma Valley, 1899
Teldeschi Ranch, Dry Creek, 1913
Tofanelli, Napa, 1929
Two Acres, RRV, 1910
Ueberroth, Paso, 1899
Vigneto di Evo, RRV, 1898
Winberri, RRV, 1905
York Creek, Napa, 1935

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Savannah-Chanelle (FKA Congress Springs) - SCM. Pre-Prohibition, not sure of the exact date offhand.
Lion Oaks - SCV. Believed to be pre-1900

1910

Don’t know the name, but the Zin vineyard in Woodside that Woodside Vineyards uses is over 100 year old vines.

Wes - that is a Cab vineyard right? How is the wine?

Lubenko (1910 or so) and Grandpere (early 1900 last I heard, though they were claiming late 1800’s). Both in Amador

More in Amador - Eschen-Rinaldi, Esola, and Massoni among them, all probably planted in the early 1900s. There are more in Amador and Calaveras as well. Also the Jessie’s Grove “Royal-Tee” vineyard in Lodi, which may date to the late 1800’s. The Mohr-Fry Vineyard in Lodi is supposed to date from about 80 years ago, and there are certainly more old-vine Zin vineyards in the Lodi area too.

Royal-Tee Vineyard, Lodi

Paging Mike Officer!

Hayne is in St. Helena. Don’t forget Moore 1906 in Napa proper.

The Cab vineyard you’re thinking of is La Questa. Less than an acre of really old vines; there’s maybe two barrels in a good year. They only produce a La Questa in the best vintages; when they do it’s intense and tannic, needs at least 10 years. I had a 97 back in 2005 and it was way too young.

Woodside Zinfandel is very good stuff too.

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I would love to visit a lot of these before I leave. Anyone up for a few tours?

Ray:
pm me.

Very cool thread.

Old vine zin was one of first wine loves. One which I havnt given much attention to the last few years.

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I am.

You owe me a call BTW.

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No need to tour just buy a bottle of this:

I got an email about the new Orin Swift 2008 Saldo ZInfandel. Here’s what the OS website says:

Quote:
In the bottle, there are grapes from Sonoma, Napa, Amador, Mendocino, and Contra Costa counties. Some of these great vineyards include Monte Rosso, Eagle Point, Rockpile, Bismark, Beatty, Page Nord, Duarte, Solari, Evangehlo, Battuelo’s, Tofanelli, Korte, Mable Tiedemann, Frediani, Lewers, Alta Vista, and Bald Mountain just to name a few.

[swearing.gif]

The Zin Vineyard is in a warm pocket with sandy soil. Ah, planted in 1897, yielding one to per acre. They make both a dry Zin and a Zin Port from it. The flavor profile is unique for a Zin, from my experience. Very round, with lots of boysenberry. It’s really the purity that’s different.

Original Grandpere Vineyard reportedly planted in The Shenandoah Valley ~ 1859. A vineyard of much storied litigation in recent times.

Glen,
There’s some question as to the authenticity of that 1859 date. I understand the '20-'30’s iis a more accurate estimate. KenZinns has details.
Tom

Good thread, Mike. Officer Mike has been paged to give us the inside skinny.

Mendocino: Tollini, Recetti, Ciapusci, DuPratt.

There’s one down in Cucamonga that CarolShelton takes grapes from.

Tom

Pre phlloxyera (spelling") Margaux vines IIRC…

Good call on those old Mendocino Ridge Zin vineyards, Tom - I’d forgotten about those. Zeni (planted in the 1910s) and Perli (original plantings are 19th century but may have been replanted since then, don’t know) are a couple of others. I’d actually spotted this interesting article about Mendo Ridge Zin some time ago:

It mentions that as many as 400 acres may have been planted there before Prohibition. Don’t know how many of those old plantings survived though.

Back in Lodi, a couple more specific old-vine Zin vineyards are mentioned here:

The article mentions Soucie Vineyard, planted 1916, and Mettler Vineyard, planted 1907. There are definitely quite a few more very old Zin vineyards in the Lodi area, but most have never gotten much recognition since few have been bottled as vineyard designates. I’m sure that’s also the case in the Sierra Foothills and other parts of California as well. Even today, Klinker Brick in Lodi produces its Old Vine and Old Ghost Zinfandel bottlings with no reference to the vineyard sources, though invariably some are from century-old vines.