And Pesenti. And I think there’s still a surviving vine or two from the original Paderewski vnyd.
And there’s a bunch down in the CienegaVlly. Made by Flint I believe.
Tom
Thanks Hank, I know that Amador should be represented!
Von Weidlich really does rock hard. How old is Rockpile Vineyard?
Thanks Ken!
Tegan, I assume you’re refering to the Moore “Earthquake” produced by Turley?
How old is Rockpile Vineyard?
Both Rockpile Vyd and Rockpile Road Vineyard were planted in the early 90’s.
Rockpile Road is the source of the Rosenblum Zin. It was planted in 1994 by Jack Florence. I have seen Rosenblum ads that refer to 100 year old vines, which I suppose is partly true. Florence got his cuttings from the over 100 year old vines in the St. Peters vineyard behind the church in Cloverdale, so the vines are clones of 100 year old vines.
Does anyone know anything about A. Rafenilli’s vines?
I’m going to try to visit them later in March.
Rafanelli’s vines aren’t that old. Americo (the A. in A. Rafanelli) planted the first grapes in the late 1960’s. I’m not sure, but there may be some Zin left. The cab was planted by David in 1986.
My mother-in-law works at Field Stone Winery on 128 in Healdsburg, and they claim a date of 1894 for their estate petite syrah vineyards. Not sure what the formal vineyard name is, though.
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Yes, moore earthquake vineyard. Planted in 1906. Zampatti in Santa Rosa planted in 1915. Salvador in Oakley planted in 1896. Story “picnic hill” in amador planted in the early 1900’s.
I’ll weigh in, but I don’t have nearly as much knowledge about these great old vineyards as many of the others here. I have spent time in the Rossi Vineyard in St. Helena that goes into Thackrey’s Orion. At least 10 varieties in that vineyard. And the Hayne Vineyard in St. Helena. And, of course, the old part of the Brandlin Ranch, less than a mile from us down the spine of our ridge. Those old head-trained vines are living sculpture. Most are heavily infected with viruses (see the leafroll symptoms on the Alicante vine above) and so they don’t produce much fruit but, wow, are they beautiful!
As Tom noted, the Zin vines we use for Chester’s Anvil aren’t very old but they were propagated from the truly old Zin vines on the Brandlin Ranch that Peter Franus uses for his Brandlin Vineyard Zin. And here’s where I have an opinion – a new vine propagated from an old vine is not an old vine. We’ve all seen those back label notes about wines made from “old vines” that aren’t really old vines. They were just young vines that were propagated from old vines. I think the TTB considered at one time whether to regulate the use of the phrase “old vines” on wine labels and concluded that the term was used too loosely to be meaningful. No one would ever be able to agree on what “old” really means. 50 years? 100 years? 5-year old vines propagated from 100-year old vines?
So are young vines propagated from old vines special? In some cases, yes. 100 years ago there were some interesting and diverse vines in California and we’ve lost some of that genetic diversity in our vineyards since then, especially in the case of Zinfandel, where lots of acres of a high-yielding selection were planted in Lodi and other relatively warm places in the 70’s for White Zin, which needed only to be pink, not tasty. And lots of acres of old, low-producing Zin vines were pulled out in the North Coast, Central Coast and the Foothills because there wasn’t much of a market for red Zin at that time. Fortunately, some still survive and those are the ones that we’re talking about here. Should we call them “old clones”? I don’t know, but they probably do represent valuable genetic diversity that we should conserve. And that’s the aim of the Zinfandel Heritage Project, an effort that’s been underway for about 15 years now to identify old Zin vineyards, take cuttings from those old vines and preserve them in a living library so their genetic identity won’t be lost even if the old vineyards are pulled out. They’re all now planted at the UC Davis Oakville Experimental Station, along with some selections of Primitivo from Italy and Crljenak kastelanski from Croatia. Living history representing the diversity of a grand old grape.
Carole
Thanks for the great info Carole.
I do like the older field blend style “zinfandels”. They seem to me to be more interesting and display greater balance and depth.
Chris,
That’s a great point about the old vineyards – that they’re often field blends. Almost all of the oldest (i.e., more than 70 years) vineyards are mixtures of several varieties (more than 10 in the Rossi Vineyard, for example), and all the varieties are usually picked together and co-fermented. This has got to be a good thing for complexity!
By the way, the Zin vineyard we use for Chester’s Anvil also has some Mourvedre vines scattered throughout. We couldn’t use them in 07 but we did in 09.
Carole
Very cool Carole. Interesting about Rossi as well. I wonder if anyone makes a wine of all ten?
Lots of old vines in that area. From DeRose:
“The 15 acres of zinfandel vines were originally planted on their own roots in the late 1890s. They grow in an assortment of soil types including a rocky mixture created by the San Andreas Fault and a fine sandy-loam that contains fist-size chunks of dolomite. This brilliant white mineral is mostly calcium, an essential element found in all great vineyards. Head trained and spur pruned, the dry-farmed vines yield only three-quarters of a ton per acre.”
Pietra Santa has Zin vines from 1905.
Great info guys. I’d love to try some wine made from this fruit.
Carole, someone else asked about this earlier in the thread, but is there a reliable way to test the age of a vine as you can with a tree?
Yes, Sean Thackrey! To the best of my knowledge, Orion is a gemisch of all the varieties in the Rossi Vineyard. That’s why it tastes so good!
Yes, grapevines have rings, just like trees, so you can count them. But you’d have to cut through the main trunk of the vine to see all the rings. You couldn’t just cut through one of the arms because they can be much younger than the vine. When an old vine gets affected by eutypa or a similar disease, sometimes diseased arms are removed and new ones developed.
Carole
Thanks, Carole, that’s what I thought. Could you core into the trunk of an old vine to count the rings and avoid cutting through the whole trunk?
Theoretically, yes. But the trunk of an old grapevine is much smaller in diameter than the trunk of an old tree, so it would be more difficult logistically. But the trunks of the old bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains of California are similar in size to grapevines, and they’ve used tree rings (in addition to carbon dating) on those so I guess it can be done.
Carole