What does vieilles vignes mean on a wine bottle?

Vieilles vignes is French for old vines and says that the grapes come from older vines than the rest of the planting.

How much older is not stated. The maker chooses the term and decides from what age it is used. Some estates add the planting year of the plot, others stick to the two words.

The same idea appears on the bottle in other countries under its own name: Alte Reben in Germany, old vines in English-speaking regions.

The OIV adopted resolution OIV-VITI 703-2024 in October 2024, with 35 years as the threshold for an old vine.

The same resolution contains the description of an old vineyard: a defined block of which at least 85 percent of the vines reach that age. For grafted plants, the union between rootstock and scion must have been undisturbed for at least 35 years.

Trade journals called the resolution a breakthrough for the old-vineyard movement, because until then there had been no shared standard.

The OIV is an intergovernmental organisation and its resolutions are adopted by consensus as a recommendation to the member states.

A recommendation is not a European regulation. A producer who puts vieilles vignes on the label is therefore not obliged to keep to the 35 years, and there is no appellation control with it as with PDO or PGI.

What the resolution does add is a measure with which governments, researchers and buyers can speak the same language. The expectation in the trade is that European regulation will sooner or later adopt that measure.

The OIV ties the definition to three goals: protection of old plots, research into genetic diversity and sustainable viticulture.

To be able to count and track lots, a measurable limit is needed. That is why the resolution calls for official documentation of the age rather than an estimate after the fact.

An old plot cannot simply be replaced either. Whoever grubs it up loses 35 years before a new planting reaches that same status.

Read vieilles vignes as a statement by the producer about their vineyard plot, not as a controlled designation such as AOP or IGP.

If a planting year or an age is given, you can set it alongside the 35 years of the OIV. If that is not given, all you know is that it concerns older vines within that estate.

In Bathmen, bottles of vieilles vignes from France stand next to a German Alte Reben and Chilean old vines. Feel free to ask what the producers themselves write about it.