Old Vine Zinfandel: What is it?

Next time you're shopping for wine, stop by the Zinfandel section and check out how many Zin labels contain "old vine" or "ancient vine". There are actually quite a bit! So what is old vine or ancient vine? Technically, nothing - the terms have no legal definition. However, many claim that vintages made from older vines are much better than those made from younger. Since this month is dedicated to learning about Zinfandel, I thought we should explore this claim.

First, let's talk about grape vines. As vines age, their yield decreases and the quality of the wine produced can also start to degrade. Many popular varieties have lifespans of 30-50 years. In fact, some vines will produce great vintages at less than 10 years. However, Zinfandel takes a long time to even out its flavors and produce good wines - about 30-50 years! Zinfandel vines can live to over a 100 years, so they are right at about middle age when they hit their stride for yield and consistent flavor. 

Once Zinfandel vines hit the last quarter of their life (~75 years), their yields start to decline, but their flavor appears to intensify instead of declining! When wineries put "old vine" or "ancient vine" on their labels, they usually are using vines that are older than 75 years. However, since there is no legal definition to the terms, wineries can use any age vines and term the wine "old vine". Vines of this age produce rich Zins that are characteristic of everything people like about the variety. 

Old vines in Sonoma - really cool looking!

I wanted to set up a taste test designed to see if "old vine" Zins were better than others. I wanted to find wines that hailed from the same area and were made by the same winery, and I found this using Cline Cellars. They have one regular Zin and one labeled ancient vines.

Both wines are from 2013, the regular is from Lodi ($8.99) and the ancient vines vintage ($10.99 on sale) comes from Contra Costa County, which is located between Lodi and San Francisco. 

Let's taste!!

I could smell cherry with the regular Zinfandel, it wasn't very complex. When tasting, I got cherry and strawberry at the start. It's a good blend and I was happy to actually taste strawberry in one of these Zins. I felt it was overpowered in the wines from a couple of weeks ago, I didn't taste it at all. The regular Zin also had some tannins that were pleasant and there was vanilla at the end. Overall, I wasn't that impressed. I think we may need to pay over $11/bottle to find a good Zin. 

The ancient vine Zinfandel was definitely different! It smells like chocolate covered strawberry and you can taste that too. There was also coffee on the tongue. I did like this one better than the regular Zin, but when comparing to other Zins from two weeks ago, it wasn't that great.

Two weeks ago, I tasted another old vine vintage: 2013 Gnarly Head. When compared to each other, the old vine wines were completely different. Cline was not as "jammy" as Gnarly Head. I could not tell if either had more concentrated flavor compared to the regular Zins. In the end, I cannot tell if older vines make better wine. However, we can explore this more in the future, there are some other varieties that are known to get better as the vine age.

So, dear reader, our explorations this week were kind of a bust! However, we got to drink wine, so it can't be all that bad. I'd be interested if you have ever found a difference between older and younger vine Zins and what wineries they came from!