Among wine enthusiasts, Jancis Robinson is household name. Awarded the Master of Wine title in 1984, she is author or co-author of several classic wine reference texts used by wine students worldwide including Wine Grapes, Oxford Companion to Wine, World Atlas of Wine. Her website, JancisRobinson.com offers both free and subscription based content for readers around the world.

Jancis hosts an annual wine writing competition, and this year the topic is "Old Vines". Old grapevines are of special interest as they have adapted to their surroundings and are known to provide more complex grapes albeit at a lower yield. Unfortunately, complexity loses out to yield in commercial terms, resulting in pulling out the vines and replanting with consequently higher yield young vines with youthful exuberance, but less grace and complexity.

As luck would have it, my vinegrower friend, Markus Niggli, had told me about an old vine vineyard in Lodi that he is in the process of rescuing and changing over from high yield to high quality. He agreed to have his efforts at Nicolini Ranch to be the subject of my entry into Jancis' 2021 Wine Writing Competition.

There were many more submissions than usual this year, totaling over 130 in all. They have been publishing two articles a day on the website, and mine was published on August 4th! Not all articles will be published, I'm excited that mine made it. In September, they will post 10 finalists and voting will begin for the overall winner of a trip to South Africa in 2022. I'll be sure to post again if a miracle occurs and I'm on that shortlist. In the meantime, I'm basking in the glory of having an article posted on JancisRobinson.com!

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