Vineyard Article

For over 145 years these ancient vines have plunged their roots through twenty-five feet of multiple soil types in search of water. This ancient vineyard is non-irrigated, stand alone head pruned vines that fully express the Amador Zinfandel terroir. The result is an elegant, complex, first-growth wine. Vineyard 1869’s existence was noted in a deed from an 1869 U.S. Geological Survey, making it America’s oldest documented Zinfandel vineyard. The immigrants who planted these vines chose them from hardy stock. In the 1890’s the vines survived the nearly total destruction of California’s vineyards by phylloxera. Due to moon-lit nights of unregulated distillation, Vineyard 1869 also survived Prohibition. It wasn’t until 1984 when the vineyard was purchased by Scott Harvey, a German-trained, California winemaker, that the vines were lovingly coaxed back into producing small yields of high quality, first-growth Zinfandel. It is now coveted for producing California’s premier Old Vine Zinfandel.