The Enduring Power of California’s Old-Vine Field Blends 

BY CAITLIN MILLER | AUGUST 12, 2021

Perhaps the most intoxicating aspect of wine is that its complex nature and deep-rooted history can humble even the most experienced oenophiles. I was recently reminded of this fact when, during a seminar on California wine, I was given an unexpected opportunity to revisit a grape I thought I knew well: Zinfandel.

My discovery of Zinfandel, and more specifically its role in California’s old-vine field blends, came late in my wine education. The word ‘discovery,’ of course, is an overstatement; I had tasted Zinfandel before and associated a very specific set of characteristics with it: big, high-octane, low to medium quality - or sweet and pink. I thought this description was also well-supported by my own research; I had sampled many of the grape’s defining wines and found those views to be fairly accurate. But this was different.

Bottles from a seminar on California wine, including the 1995 Pagani Ranch from Ridge Vineyards.

At the end of the seminar, we were poured a bonus wine and asked to taste it blind. Suffice it to say, I was not prepared for what I experienced. The wine was otherworldly. It was one of the most complex, nuanced and utterly compelling wines I had ever tasted. There were notes of dried fruit, leather, game, tobacco, clove; the kaleidoscopic aromas seemed endless. It had a smooth, supple mouthfeel and lively acidity despite showing clear signs of age. Was it Cabernet? Maybe, Syrah? Nothing felt quite right. I was stumped.

When I learned that the wine was a 25-year-old Ridge Zinfandel from the Pagani Ranch Vineyard, I was completely flabbergasted. Nothing that I knew of the grape resonated with what I was tasting in the glass. Brawny? No. Jammy? Definitely not. It was elegant, age-worthy, and could hold its own against much more expensive California Cabernets.

So why was my impression of Zinfandel so far off? Clearly, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Zinfandel. There was a story here and I was eager to learn it.

Delving into the history of Ridge’s Pagani Ranch bottling, I soon discovered what makes this Zinfandel so special; the vineyard dates back to the 1900s and the 120-year-old vines are not just Zinfandel. The vineyard is interplanted with Mataro (Mourvèdre), Alicante Bouschet, and Petite Sirah, which all end up in the resulting wine. In other words, it’s an old-vine field blend and a relic of the early days of the California wine industry. These original field-blend vineyards, of which there are precious few left, are perhaps the most unique, rare and distinctly American aspects of California wine.

A field blend, not to be confused with the popular term “red blend,” is a wine made from a vineyard that is interplanted with many different grape varieties. The vines are often planted in a mosaic-like pattern as opposed to the neat, single-variety rows seen in modern vineyards. At harvest, the different grapes are usually picked all together and co-fermented in a single vat, even if they are not all at peak ripeness. In theory, the differences in each variety will complement one another and produce a more balanced and complex final wine. By contrast, a red blend is made by picking and fermenting each grape variety separately then blending the finished wines to achieve the desired taste profile.

How did these unusual vineyards and their distinct wines come to be? The winemakers and vineyard managers that care for the historic field-blend vineyards have pieced together the scant historical records and revealed the fascinating, if at times incomplete, story of the origins and evolution of California’s distinct field blends - and are keeping the tradition alive and well.