Turley “Old Vines” Zinfandel, California Old Vines, Young Love: Story and Significance We Began the Turley “Old Vine” Cu

Turley “Old Vines” Zinfandel, California Ungrafted, 105-year-old Zinfandel vine, Lodi, California Old Vines, Young Love: Story and Significance We began the Turley “Old Vine” cuvée nearly twenty years ago, in 2000, and it remains one of the most important wines we make today. The story of this wine is the story of Turley Wine Cellars itself. After two decades as an emergency room physician, Larry Turley developed a passion for restoration, rejuvenation, and yes, resuscitation. Where others might see decay, decrepitude and neglect, Larry looked beyond, finding instead health, history, and potential. This passion has translated directly into his strong affinity towards old vine vineyards across California, sites that were often neglected in favor of their younger, more vigorous and less troublesome brethren. Some had been abandoned altogether, ripped out for developments or replaced with more lucrative crops. Turley, alongside longtime Vineyard Manager (and now Director of Winemaking) Tegan Passalacqua, is devoted to saving these old vineyards, reinvigorating them through organic farming practices and preserving them in the ground for generations to come. Indeed, thanks to attentive care in the vineyards and producing wines of elegance, transparency and purity, Turley has proved these ancient vines as the cultural treasures they truly are. After starting with only three vineyards in 1993, Turley now produces wine from over 50 vineyards, 31 of which are old vine sites, and 18 over 100 years old. To our knowledge, today Turley works with more old vine vineyards than any other winery in the world. None of this would be possible without the “Old Vines” wine, home to fruit sourced from these many salvaged old-vine sites across California. If it weren’t for this particular cuvée, many of these vineyards would have been lost, along with over a century of our cultural heritage. What Constitutes an “Old Vine?” There is no technical (read: legal) definition of an “old vine” in the United States, so the common claims on wine labels vary widely. Not content with arbitrary labels— after all, very little is done arbitrarily in emergency medicine—Turley employs fifty years as the minimum vine age to be considered for “Old Vines.” This number was chosen purposefully thanks to the Historic Vineyard Society, of which Tegan is a founding board member. By adopting much of the criteria for consideration as a United States National Historic Landmark, the goal of HVS is to achieve legal protection for these (agri)cultural vineyard sites as historic landmarks. Some of these shared criteria for these sites include: I. “Sites…that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States in history…and culture” and “possess a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.” II. “Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and are identified with, or that outstandingly represent, the broad national patterns of United States history and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may be gained.” III. “That represent some great idea or ideal of the American people” IV. “That are composed of integral parts of the environment …[that] collectively compose an entity of exceptional historical or artistic significance, or outstandingly commemorate or illustrate a way of life or culture.”1 Zinfandel vines planted in Sonoma in ‘30s and ‘40s that form part of the “Old Vines” cuvée 1 Legal Information Institute, 36 CFR § 65.4 - National Historic Landmark criteria With all of that in mind, it is easy to see why we might consider these ancient vineyards a significant part of our cultural heritage. They are the fruit of immigration patterns in the United States as a whole and California in particular; most of the very oldest vines are in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, planted by the early pioneers of America’s “Manifest Destiny” and a direct result of the California Gold Rush in 1849. Indeed, immigration patterns within California can often be traced through the names of many of these old vineyards, as well as the way and varieties to which they’re planted; from the Germans of Lodi (Kirschenmann, Bechtoldt, Schmeid) to the Portuguese of Contra Costa (Evangelho, Salvador, Mori) to the many Italians of Sonoma and Paso Robles (Pesenti, Martinelli, Dusi, Zampatti). Furthermore, many of these vineyards have survived Prohibition and two separate devastating bouts of phylloxera. Thanks to the diverse agriculture, geography, topography and unique cultural circumstances, “the world’s most extensive plantings of really old vines are, perhaps contrary to expectations, in California.”2 Thus winemaking from old vine vineyards, particularly of old vine Zinfandel vineyards, is one of the most unique and significantly Californian cultural contributions to our nation’s heritage. Why are old vines superior? In addition to their cultural significance, old vines produce a naturally more complex, balanced, and sustainable wine. Young vines tend to be vigorous and high yielding for a short period of time (16-20 years) before most wineries rip them up and replant, to keep yields at a maximum; think of the brief but intense career of an NFL player. Young modern vineyards are also almost always irrigated, which keeps the yields high and the root systems shallow, but can (in our opinion) dilute the quality and integrity of the final wine. An old vine, on the other hand, naturally regulates its yields, focusing all of the vine’s energy into a more finite—and ultimately more concentrated—final wine. Furthermore, these vines are dry-farmed, meaning they survive only on the natural rainfall patterns and water tables of their respective micro-climates. Finally, they are more deeply rooted in the soils, reaching down over 40 feet into the earth in some cases. For these reasons, we believe the final wines produced by truly old vines are the truest representations of their respective terroirs. Plus, they just taste good (see tasting note, below). Varietal Composition of “Old Vines” The vast majority of old vine vineyards in California are field blends, for two fundamental reasons: I. DNA testing did not begin in earnest until 1993, nearly 100 years after many of these vineyards were planted. II. Early winemakers did not have large estates to experiment with planting various varieties in different locations, with different soils or exposures to make blends, so they often did their “winemaking” in the vineyards themselves. Primarily this consisted of planting the majority of their site to one main variety (i.e. Zinfandel) then planting a few rows of various 2 Jancis Robinson MW et al, Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours (Harper Collins US, 2012). other grapes to use as a “spice rack” of sorts. These made up very small percentages of the final blend, serving primarily to “season” the main variety. Final little fun fact: we firmly believe that all the best of our single-vineyard old vine Zinfandels come from field blend sites. Take the Hayne Zinfandel, planted 1902-03 in Napa Valley; it is and always has been the crown jewel of Turley’s wines. After Zinfandel, the 2nd most widely planted grape variety in that vineyard is…Trousseau Noir! Technical Information: 2017 Turley “Old Vines” Zinfandel, California • Varietal composition: Zinfandel 95%, Mataro (Mourvèdre), Alicante Bouschet, Petite Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault 5% • Number of vineyards: 23, 10 of which are over 100 years old, 3 of which are ungrafted • Regions represented, north to south: Mendocino Ridge AVA, Mendocino County; Amador County AVA, Sierra Foothills; St. Helena AVA, Napa Valley; Moon Mountain AVA, Sonoma County; Lodi AVA, Sacramento & San Joaquin Counties; Contra Costa County AVA; Lime Kiln AVA, San Benito County; Willow Creek District AVA, Paso Robles • Average age of vines: 89 years • Elevage: only indigenous yeasts used in all fermentations. Spends 12 months in barrel, 80% French oak, 20% American (overall only 10% new oak) • Bottled sulfur: 10 mg/L free, 67 mg/L total Tasting Note There is no better way to gauge the classic character of old vine Zinfandel in California than through this wine. The 2017 Old Vines smells like one of my all-time favorite, most vivid summer memories: picking the blackberry bushes that line our Estate vineyard in St. Helena in the late afternoon. Warm and perfectly ripe, these berries were destined for a pie, if I could hold off on eating all of them before I walked back home. Hailing from over 20 ancient vineyards across California and aged in only 10% new oak, the wine has all those bright, pure berry fruit notes and more; the elegant, grown-up version of that Rockwellian memory. Intensely satiating and polished on the palate, with the kind of natural depth, complexity, and grace that can only come from truly old vines. Vineyard Sources: The following images are highlights of some of California’s most historic vineyards that comprise the 2017 Turley “Old Vines” Zinfandel. Dupratt Vineyard Zinfandel, Mendocino Ridge, planted 1916 Ungrafted vines planted at 1600 feet in Mendocino County, just 5 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Surrounded by redwood forest and ancient apple trees. Enz Vineyard Zinfandel, Lime Kiln Valley, planted 1895 Planted on a limestone and dolomite foundation, with gravelly and sandy topsoil in the Lime Kiln Valley AVA of San Benito County, in California’s Central Coast. Fredericks Vineyard Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley, planted 1937 Certified organic, planted at 1000’ on Moon Mountain in the Franciscan soils of the Mayacamas Mountains. The vines sit in fog for the better part of the day. Ueberroth Vineyard Zinfandel, planted 1885 Ungrafted Zinfandel planted in the calcareous soils of the Willow Creek AVA in Paso Robles.

Load more