Ironstone Vineyards - Zinfandel Rous old vine

The Rous Vineyard, grafted entirely onto St. George rootstock, was planted in 1909 making this vintage a spectacular 111-year-old vines! This 10 acre, single-source vineyard is in the sub-appellation of Mokelumne River. These magnificent, twisted, gnarly, head-trained Zinfandel vines yield 2.5 tons per acre of fruit with incredible concentration of flavors. But it wasn’t always this way. When Craig Rous purchased the vineyard in 1994, he still had two years of it being under contract as White Zinfandel. Once this contract expired, he started the process of transforming it back into a Red Zinfandel vineyard by specialized pruning. Already under way, he changed it from furrow to drip irrigation and added solar panels to fuel the well. Craig’s method of “bug control” is the numerous lizards and spiders throughout the vineyard. The soil is a mixture of very sandy and sandy loam.