Old vine

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Left and right two older Riesling vines flank a thin-stemmed quite young vine in the Kirchenstück vineyard in the village of Hochheim, Rheingau, Germany, illustrating the effect of age on the look of a vine.

Old vine (French: vieilles vignes, German: alte Reben) is a term commonly used on wine labels to indicate that a wine is the product of grape vines that are notably old. The practice of displaying it stems from the general belief that older vines, when properly handled, will give a better wine. However, it should be noted that in France, the U.S., and most countries, it has no legal or even generally agreed upon definition.

Grape vines can grow for over 120 years. After about 20 years vines start to produce smaller crops, and average yields decrease, leading to more concentrated, intense wines. Diseases such as "dead arm" can also afflict old vines, in some cases further concentrating the juice. "Old vines" might apply to an entire estate, or it might mean only a certain parcel planted before others. In the U.S., the most common use is on Zinfandel, because in California vineyards up to 125 years old are still bearing small amounts of prized Zinfandel fruit.

Some of the oldest commercially grape producing vine yards are planted in the Barossa Valley in Australia, one of the oldest being the Langmeil vine yard which have Shiraz from 1843. The oldest known grape producing vine grows in Maribor in Slovenia and was planted over 400 years ago, it produces a token of about 35 to 55Kg grapes each year which is fermented and put into about 100 miniature bottles.

In a place where wine production is longstanding, it often means a wine whose vines are thirty to forty years old. Some wine makers insist the vines should be older than this. In newly-established wine regions, twenty years might be old. The definition is further complicated by the fact that certain varieties simply do not have economically viable yields when they get truly ancient.

Because there is no objective definition, an "old vines" wine might or might not show any specific characteristics related to vine age. Generally, the more reputable the producer, the more likely it is to mean something. Similarly, if a producer sells a "regular" and "old vines" bottling, it is more likely to represent a perceptible difference in character, if not necessarily in quality. In these ways, "old vines" is similar to "reserve," a term that also varies dramatically in its significance and often has no legal definition.

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