A Taste of Lodi’s Historic Vineyards

The Historic Vineyard Society (“HVS”) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving distinguished old-vine vineyards in Lodi and elsewhere in California.

Lodi is among the leaders in California with 18 historic vineyards listed with HVS, including seven (Katushas‘ Vineyard, Marian’s, Mohr-Fry, Rous. Schmiedt, Stampede Vineyard, and ZinStar), which have been validated and registered with the HVS.

In order for a vineyard to qualify as a “historic”, it must meet three criteria:

• A currently producing California wine vineyard
• Original planting date no later than 1960
• At least 1/3 of existing producing vines can be traced back to original planting date

In other words, these truly are “old-vine” vineyards!

What’s in it for wine consumers?

Some of the most exciting wines in California are being crafted from the fruit of these historic vineyards.  That’s because these twisted, gnarly old vines naturally produce low yields of grapes with a concentrated, intensely flavorful character.

If you’d like to taste wines from these truly “old-vine” vineyards, here are four examples of some of Lodi’s oldest and finest single-vineyard bottlings produced from historic vineyards:

2014 M2 Wines Zinfandel Old Vine Soucie Vineyard
2014 St. Amant Winery Zinfandel Old Vines Marian’s Vineyard
2015  Fields Family Wines Cinsault, Bechthold Vineyard
2015 Macchia Winery Zinfandel Generous Mohr-Fry Ranch Vineyard

Or any check out the latest Lodi Native Project Wines, many of which were crafted from historic old-vine vineyards!

I think you’ll agree these the fruit of these vines have gotten better with time!

Photo: Robert Calzada