“OLD VINES”
On occasion, you may see “Old Vines” or, in French, “Vieilles Vignes” on a wine label. On the same occasion, you may note that the price of the wine is high.
Wine grapes from “old vines” appear to exact a premium over those made from any younger vines. OK, why?
In answer, it serves to see how the arc of a vine’s life resembles, in an uncanny way, that of the life of the average Joe (or Josephine)—because age, in both humans and vines, augments value.
Birth to seven years: After a vine is planted, its grapes are usable after its third or fourth year only. Immature vines either grow no grapes or what they do grow isn’t fit to make good wine. As a vine approaches its seventh year, on average, its grapes begin to appeal to winemakers.
Likewise, babies are cute, but they don’t make much that’s usable—unless you wish to art up the refrigerator.
Seven to 15 years: The gangly kid and adolescent—vine or human—vis all purposeless energy in need of direction. Vines get pruned; kids get educated. Then, toward the 15th year, each reaches its stride. Indeed, after ten years, if healthy, the one or the other requires merely good management.
15-25 years: Energy escalated. The creatures are at the peak of their (re)productive capacity.
A grapevine is little more than an energy machine, seeking above all to remake itself in the seeds within its grapes. And so, it spews as many grapes as possible, spreading all that energy among them. But to make good wine, winemakers crop back the vine so that that energy is funneled into just a few bunches of grapes. Voila, concentration of both flavor and color.
25-40 years: Now’s the time to coast, perchance to accumulate (in the case of a vine, thicker, nutrient-channeling wood and roots). Around 30 years old, the work of both vine and human is markedly consistent. But something new is about. It isn’t the quantity of the output that matters, it’s its quality.
Hereabouts, some winemakers begin to plug “old vines.” (Some apply the term after 40 years. Some, even later; others, much later.) In any case, it’s judged that “old vines” turn out fruit that concentrates.
No agreement exists about exactly how old “old” is for a vine and, further, the designation is outside the law in any country that uses it. To bend the adage, a vine is as old as a winemaker may think it is.
40-55 years: The concentration of quality continues. Output slackens, yes, but that which issues enjoys greater depth of flavor, color, complexity, and possible perfumes—everything lovers of wine love in a wine.
55-75 years: Down, but not out. Almost everything in the plant or the person simply slows down. Deterioration, perhaps, but if not life-threatening (chiefly in the latter years), what comes from either is a marvel of intensity, purity of delivery, and force of extract.
It’s as if crystals were being made from a crush of the former life. One grape from the vine or insight from the human captures within itself the swarm of experience of the years passed before it.
But here’s the rub. Those in thrall over either may decide that, despite the quality of the output, the quantity no longer justifies its use. Uproot it, they argue, or shunt it aside. Replace it with younger, more vigorous stock.
And this is why the many wines of “old vines” cost. In effect, “old vines” signifies “old vines’ yields.”
75+ years: Now the vine is wise. Far from prolific, its grapes dribble from the vine’s canes. Nonetheless, these guru grapes have a character, an integrity, a personality that everyone serious about wine seeks out. These are truly, deservedly, “old vines.”
100+ years: It’s said of Pablo Picasso that, at age 91, he bragged about making love to his wife the afternoon before the evening on which he died. (In any case, his last recorded words, at dinner, were “Drink to me, drink to my health.”)
Some types of vines—California Zinfandel comes to mind—do not unfailingly limp into a second century. Yet they thrive there, delivering on both gusto and pith.