Vino In My Dino

What is an Old Vine?

December 9, 2014 12:34

Bear with me as we navigate the sometimes confusing waters of wine terms. Old Vine, Reserve, Special Selection and others are phrases that are used on wine labels to help give more definition of style but don’t really stick to a particular set of rules. ‘Reserve’ in fact has no legal definition so wineries may use it freely—check out the wine wall the next time you are at a store and count the ‘reserves’. The same goes for Old Vine, where you would expect it to have a definition (75-100 years old at least) but it doesn’t. If you had 20 grape growers in a room I don’t think you’d draw a consensus for a definition. We don’t use the old vine term on our Mother Clone Zinfandel because we developed a proprietary name. It refers to vineyards ranging in age from 100 (a very small part of the blend) to 20 years old, some historic and some new kids on the block. These are well established vineyards but not ‘old’ in the sense that this Zinfandel is from a century old vineyard. If you are curious about what is in your glass when it comes to our wines rest assured we do our best to define it for you. From my Dino cup to yours, cheers!

This photo of the Mother Clone vineyard on our Home Ranch shows 30+ year old vines.

MC Vines

Tags: Pedroncelli, winespeak, Zinfandel, vines
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