Old vine is a term commonly used on wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 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, in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and most countries, it has no legal or even generally agreed upon definition.

Terminology

Grape vines can grow for over 120 years. After about 20 years vines start to produce smaller crop

Crop (agriculture)

A crop is a non-animal species or variety that is grown to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, fuel or for any other economic purpose. Major world crops include maize , wheat, rice, soybeans, hay, potatoes and cotton. While the term "crop" most commonly refers to plants, it can also include...

s, and average yield

Crop yield

In agriculture, crop yield is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself...

s 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

Zinfandel

Zinfandel is a variety of red grape planted in over 10 percent of California vineyards. DNA fingerprinting revealed that it is genetically equivalent to the Croatian grape Crljenak Kaštelanski, and also the Primitivo variety traditionally grown in Puglia , where it was introduced in the 18th century...

, because in California vineyards up to 125 years old are still bearing small amounts of prized Zinfandel fruit.

Some of the oldest commercially active grape producing vineyards are planted in the Barossa Valley

Barossa Valley (wine)

The Barossa Valley is one of Australia's oldest wine regions. Located in South Australia, the Barossa Valley is about 56km northeast of the city of Adelaide...

 in Australia, one of the oldest being the Langmeil vineyard which has Shiraz grapes planted in 1843, now being years old. The oldest known grape producing vine grows in Maribor

Maribor

Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....

 in Slovenia and was planted over 400 years ago, it produces a token of about 35 to 55 kg grapes each year which is fermented

Fermentation (wine)

The process of fermentation in wine turns grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. During fermentation, yeast interact with sugars in the juice to create ethanol, commonly known as ethyl alcohol, and carbon dioxide...

 and put into about 100 miniature bottles. The Barossa Old Vine Charter was established to protect the older vines in the region and prevent them from being removed from the ground.

The oldest producing vineyard in California is widely agreed to be the Grandpere vineyard, an Amador County Zinfandel planting dating to 1865.

Domaine Henri Marionnet in the Cour-Cheverny appellation of the Loire Valley claims the oldest producing vineyard in France, a Romorantin planting dating to 1850. Interestingly Marionnet has grafted from the old vines and planted a new Romorantin vineyard right next to the ancient pre-phylloxera planting.

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.

Legal definition

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

Reserve wine

Reserve wine is a term given to a specific wine to imply that is of a higher quality than usual, or a wine that has been aged before being sold, or both. Traditionally winemakers would "reserve" some of their best wine rather than sell it immediately, coining the term.In some countries the use of...

," a term that also varies dramatically in its significance and in many countries and regions has no legal definition.