By: Virginie Boone

The 2025 Global Old Vine Conference: Meeting of the Minds will come to Sonoma County on November 1, in partnership with Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, commonly known as ZAP.

The multi-day event for the wine trade and media actually begins October 31 in Napa Valley, travels to Sonoma County and then moves on to Lodi. A non-profit organization, the Old Vine Conference’s aim is to create a new global category of wine from heritage vineyards around the world. It’s hoping to build an enduring community to talk about and sustain old vines.

It held its first conference in 2021 in London to agree on a set of principles and best practices and included speakers from around a diverse set of wine regions across the world.

In 2022, the conference explored the theme “Old Vines: why now is their time” and proposed that old vine heritage is a powerful, unifying marketing narrative, a rich resource and a secret weapon, “arks of genetic diversity” and “teachers in ‘planting to grow old,’” as well as an emerging premium category.

The conference in 2024 dove deeply into climate change and sustainability, and the role of old vines in adaptation. Again, it took place in London and was broadcast live online over two days, featuring a presentation that asked, “how do we turn today’s 25-year-old vines into tomorrow’s 100-year-old vineyards?”

The conferences are intended as a way to highlight regions, winemakers and industry associations doing the work around preserving, marketing and understanding old vines.

This year will be the first time the event takes place in California, with multiple old-vine field trips interspersed between tastings, seminars, panel discussions, masterclasses and keynotes from such luminaries as Jancis Robinson MW (who will give a keynote on night one), Rosa Kruger, founder of The Old Vine Project in South Africa, Dr. Laura Catena of Catena Zapata and the Catena Institute of Wine, Jose Ignacio Gracia Lopez of CRDO Campo de Borja in Spain and Marco Giordano, managing director, Vinchio Vaglio in Italy. The field trips will underscore California’s rich old-vine heritage, a living testament to the resilience and transcendence of wine culture here.

On October 31, the conference will coincide with the California Wine Institute’s Global Buyers Marketplace taking place in Napa, with buyers and importers from more than 30 countries coming to taste California wines. The opening Gala Tasting and Dinner will showcase old-vine wines from California and the world. As a partner and sponsor of this conference, Sonoma County Winegrowers will be participating in the Gala Tasting and Dinner showcasing Sonoma County wines.

November 1 the conference centers on Sonoma County with a day of panels, presentations, masterclasses and networking, centered at the Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country in Santa Rosa. Sonoma County Winegrowers is hosting “Deep Roots, Distinct Wines, Diverse Varietals: A Sonoma County Old Vine Masterclass” showcasing wines from across Sonoma County. A tasting and dinner follows at Seghesio Family Vineyards in Healdsburg. Sunday, November 2, field trips go into the old-vine vineyards of Sonoma County like Bedrock and Jackass Hill accompanied by alfresco seminars, tastings and lunch.

The Sonoma County Winegrowers will close out the time spent in Sonoma County with a hosted wine reception and dinner with local growers and vintners.

The following two days, November 3-4, the conference heads to Lodi and Contra Costa for one day of conference content and another day of field trips.

A livestream will carry most of the conference’s proceedings.

In addition to the conference, The Old Vine Registry was created two years ago, the world’s first crowdsourced global database of living historic vineyard sites. With 8,023 vineyards representing 23,842 hectares (58,915 acres) at the moment, it aims to have 10,000 vineyards registered to its database by 2027. To be in the registry, at least 85% of the vines must be at least 35 years old, or if grafted, the grafts must be 35 years old. There are 185 current entries from Sonoma County.

California’s Historic Vineyard Society has been dedicated to cataloging and preserving California’s historic vineyards for some time. To be included, a vineyard must be currently producing, have an original planting date of at least 50 years ago, and have at least 1/3 of its existing vines traceable to that original planting.

Take part if you can. Sonoma County’s Century Club recognizes the families who have farmed in this region for 100 years and more; these old vines have played a vital part in many of their legacies.