Old vines. Vieilles Vignes. Viñas Viejas. Alte Reben. Vecchie Vigne. Vinhas Velhas. Perhaps second only to “Reserve/Riserva/Reserva” among phrases conveying quality and premiumness on wine bottles. Sometimes they (controversially) refer to vines 30 years old, other times to vines nearing their 200th birthday.

Unlike a lot of marketing terms, Old Vines are actually very well grounded in fact – and a lot of that is due to the vines themselves being ever better grounded as their root systems grow ever deeper over decades. Viticulturalists are fond of their resilience to droughts and other extreme conditions. And while accountants bemoan the lower yields compared to younger, more vigorous vines, winemakers fight back against replanting because they recognise lower yields come hand in hand with increased quality through better balance of structure and concentration of flavour.

Due to the phylloxera epidemic destroying much of the European and indeed world’s vineyards in the late 19th century, truly old vineyards are rare. Further to that, agricultural policies and teaching in the latter half of the 20th century often drove viticulturalists to replant vineyards every 30 years or so to maximise yields. As a consequence, vineyards nearing or over 100 years old are quite rare.

In this tasting we will nevertheless taste a number of such wines, discover what “Old Vines” really mean in the glass, taste examples from different countries and even continents, as well as compare wines from old vines to those made from their younger brethren.

This tasting will be presented in English by Dr Janice Wang DipWSET and Domen Prešern DipWSET

This tasting is open for everyone, but as we sometimes will be very detailed, it does give a better experience, if you have some basic knowledge of wines. A good help is to study this "cheat-sheet" kortlink.dk/2pdep and kortlink.dk/2pdfs, to get a basic understanding of wines, their appearance, aromas, flavours and structure.And this

The presentation will be in English

This event is organised by Poul Tang poul.tang@m.ida.dk - 5171 5240.