Vine Age – the interview

I was interviewed earlier this year as part of a student’s (amy hopkinson) dissertation research on the impact of vine age on Pinot Noir quality. Here is a transcript of the interview

Roger Parkinson, June 2012

A: the important of vine age on Pinot Noir quality?

R: Ah, it’s a good question, our oldest Pinot vines are now about 13 years and I’m not convinced that I’ve seen any age changes as yet, whether it will, there are variety differences I don’t know. Say for instance with Chardonnay we have a single vineyard wine which is a result, came about as a result of changes in the flavour profile, structure of the wine. That seemed to occur at 15 years. And whether that’s own rooted vines whether you would have the same impact and it would be the same with grafted as opposed to ungrafted I’m not sure, so I’m sort of expecting on the basis of what we saw on the Chardonnay that somewhere around about that time I might see some age effect.

A: So how important do you think vine age is on quality?

R: Again, I haven’t seen so much impact on quality; it’s as much on style as it is on quality from what I have seen with our Chardonnay block. And you can argue about what constitutes quality, if we see the same things we see in Pinot as we have in Chardonnay I’d expect to see less varietal contribution, the proportion of the wines character that you could attribute to varietal descriptors, if you like, diminishing. And the structural and textural elements I’d expect to see become more prominent in the wine. And I haven’t seen the same impact at all with the aromatic varieties; we also make Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling and nothing really stuck out whereas it was really pronounced with the Chardonnay the shift, not with the aromatics so much. Yet anyway, and those vines are now 22-23 years so, as I say with Pinot yet to see really. That’s about what the expectation would be.

A: So if you where speculating, what do you the possible reasons for the effect of vine age would be?

R: Well I have certainly noticed less vigour, at the same time whether that’s related, pass. I’m not convinced that it’s to do with deeper or broader root migration. I’m more of the view that it’s in some way or other the plant itself is at a different equilibrium, to me that suggests a better balance in terms of the different sinks in the vine. So as with young vines I do tend to think that you get a lot more resources going to vegetative growth and sugar development if you like, I think with age there is an evening out of that. The textural elements, again hard to know why other than in some way there is more phenolic development than in the earlier years but its hard to see any thing physically on the vine or in the timing. Phenology is unchanged; we are not seeing any difference in picking dates, budburst, flowering, any of those stages that you might look to see. So as I say I think there is fundamentally something going on in the vine to do with its own internal balances.

A: Anything else regarding vine age that we haven’t really covered?

R: Not really

A: Do you have any virus?

R: Certainly, but not with Pinot which is younger stuff, but certainly in the original planting on their own roots we see leaf roll 1 virus. We have Mendoza Chardonnay, and virus is known to be part of the story with it. Whether we have leaf roll virus 3 in the old plantings it’s a possibility but we are not seeing any delayed ripening or any of those things.

End of Interview.