How a California vineyard built a brand around its red blend
Marietta Cellars' "Old Vine Red" uses old vines — and old growing techniques — to produce a red blend that's a mouthful.
Before California’s 21st century red blend boom gave us today’s proliferation of options ranging from fully dry to sticky sweet, most premium reds were “varietal wines” sold under the name of a dominant grape, such as cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir. Quality-driven vintners were initially reluctant to offer non-varietal wines in the ’80s and ‘90s, for fear of being confused with mass-market generic plonk.
Marietta Cellars was among the first to embrace the multi-grape blend concept in 1982 with the launch of their “Old Vine Red.” It still remains one of the red blend category’s leaders in terms of consistency and quality for the dollar.
Marietta’s “Old Vine Red” used to have a simple blue-and-white label that stood out on the shelf because it carried a lot number instead of a single vintage date. Its packaging looks quite different today, emphasizing the name of their “Old Vine Ranch” line over the winery’s name. The wine inside, however, has stayed true to the original vision of replicating the richness and concentration found in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties’ “field blends.”
In those regions, many vineyards still had vines that were planted the old-fashioned way before Prohibition. Zinfandel was typically the dominant grape, but other varieties were mixed in amongst the rows. These mature field-blended vineyards produced high-quality fruit with a dark, plush, and crowd-pleasing flavor profile. But their wines couldn’t sell under a grape name with cachet since zinfandel was associated with cheap blush at the time.
Instead, Marietta chose to build a brand by prioritizing their price-to-quality ratio over the prestige of their label statements. They hit a home run with their “Old Vine Red,” a zinfandel-based blend with a smattering of other red grapes such as syrah and barbera. Unlike so many of today’s California red blends, this one has always been made in a fully dry European-influenced style that combines younger wine with cask-aged wine to get the best of both vibrancy and complexity.
Flavorwise, “Old Vine Red” is quite a mouthful. It balances youthful and jammy flavors of blueberry pie with more mature notes of dried cherries, fig jam, and pipe tobacco.
Old Vine Ranch’s Old Vine Red
California; 13.5% ABV
PLCB Item #100049025 — $16.99 through May 31 (regularly $18.99)
Also available at: Canal’s in Mt. Ephraim ($13.99; mycanals.com), Canal’s Liquors in Pennsauken ($16.99; canals-liquors-pennsauken.myshopify.com), and Wine Warehouse in Clementon ($17.49; winewarehousenj.com)
