California Vines Age Prematurely

(Wine-Searcher) - An early addiction to irrigation might be the reason that vines planted in California in the 1990s are not aging gracefully.

California has the image of a place where people want to stay forever young. But for grapevines, it seems to be a state where they get old in a hurry – maybe that's because they drink too much. Water, of course.

Monday's seminar at the now-annual In Pursuit of Balance conference brought together four winemakers who work with mature Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines.

One of the first questions was, how old is old? "For California, 20 years is an old vineyard," responded winemaker Steve Matthiasson. "It's not producing as much. Diseases are kicking in. You have to decide whether it's time to replant."

This is a far cry from many classic Old World regions, noted Raj Parr, founder of the In Pursuit of Balance group. "An old vine in Burgundy is 40 or 50 years old."

In an attempt to explain the age gap, Wind Gap owner and winemaker Pax Mahle speculated that the difference in life span may be irrigation, which is not permitted in most of Europe. Vines must learn to find their own water sources underground, whereas in California, they are usually nurtured through their early, fast-growing years by drip irrigation, he explained.

In addition, Matthiasson, who is much in demand in Napa and Sonoma as a vineyard consultant, believes that as a group, California vintners continually made poor choices about rootstocks, which has had a negative impact on the age of the state's vineyards.

In the 1970s and 1980s, most California vineyards were planted on the AxR1 rootstock recommended by UC Davis. That rootstock turned out in the 1990s to be susceptible to phylloxera.