Old vine

Old vine (French: Vieilles Vignes, English:. Old Vines ) are of increasing importance in the wine marketing. Old vines stand for high quality, dense flavors, rare and sought after wines at appropriate prices. Accordingly, this statement appeared on the wine labels and more frequently.

Since this title is not protected, will remain open to what " old " means exactly and when a wine is to be called so. However, this identification is a fairly reliable indicator of quality. In general, it refers to vines that are at least 40 years old. There are vines that are 80 or even 100 years old - they are certainly in that category. In California there are vineyards with Zinfandel vines that were planted partly in the 19th century. Even in isolated locations in Spain, you can still ungrafted Rebbe stands from before phylloxera. These scattered vines were spared the phylloxera due to special climatic conditions such as extreme heat and drought. You have now reached an age of about 120 years. The oldest German vine - a Gewurztraminer able Rhodter rose garden - to be even nearly 400 years old and are in Rhodt in Germany's oldest vineyard.

From the age of about 20 years, the yield of the vines increases significantly and continuously, thereby the grapes are supplied with more ingredients and have a denser and more complex a flavor on. However, these wines are due to the low yield and the rarity of old vines - see phylloxera disaster, in which only a few ungrafted vines have survived - rare and expensive.

For young vines there - almost exclusively in France - the term " Jeunes Vignes " ( Young vines ).

Oldest known vines

As the oldest known vines apply:

• The " Stara Trta " in Maribor (Slovenia ) is over 400 years old
• The Urrebe in Magrè (South Tyrol ) was demonstrably planted in 1601, making it over 400 years old
• The " Versoaln " in Prissian (South Tyrol ) is around 350 years old and is also considered the largest vine with a plant canopy of about 350 m2