When Clay Shannon stumbled upon a long-forgotten, 150-year-old vine on his northern California property, little did he know he had uncovered a story of historic resilience and future hope.
The Shannon Family of Wines proprietor and his wife Angie dug deeper and discovered they owned a unique viticultural treasure: a Vitis vinifera Cinsault vine brought over to North America from Croatia in the 1870s by a family who built a homestead on the site that is now their home ranch in California’s Lake County, about an hour and a half drive north of Napa.
To conserve this precious legacy and expand production, the Shannons collaborated with a specialist nursery to propagate buds from which to create new vines and then plant vineyard plots. In 2024 the fruit of their labor was finally ready: the very first wine made from the new Cinsault vines, a rosé aptly baptized Mother Vine, was born.
This touching tale connects the dots from pioneering 19th century Croatian homesteader Martin Ogulin and his family to the Shannons’ present-day quest to craft wines with a sense of place.
This passion project is deeply rooted in the past, but it also has important implications for the future, especially as climate change is leading producers to adapt their vineyards.
An Intriguing Discovery
For Clay and Angie Shannon, the story began in 2013, when they were looking to expand their wine business and vineyard holdings. They already leased Cabernet Sauvignon vines from the third-generation descendants of Ogulin, and when the opportunity arose to purchase 100 acres of quality land adjacent to their existing acreage, they seized the chance.
The site they bought boasted a mixture of mature Zinfandel vines, trees, weeds and brambles, and a number of age-old, abandoned buildings. In 2014, they began to transform the scrubland into vineyard plots. Soon after, they made a discovery: a thick, gnarly trunk concealed within a tangle of barbed wire and bushes.
Partly hidden by the dirt, growing horizontal to the ground and with practically no foliage, this was clearly no ordinary vine. On closer inspection, Clay Shannon realized it was not an indigenous North American Vitis riparia plant. And given the history of his purchase, he wondered if this could be a V. vinifera specimen introduced from central Europe by the land’s previous farmers, many moons ago.
The mystery begged to be solved. “This vine served as my motivation,” Clay reminisces. “I wanted to investigate the lives of the family who had homesteaded our property and learn more about their way of life and how they farmed the land.”
Stepping Back in Time
The Shannons delved into the past. Hunting through historical records and newspaper reports, they pieced the puzzle together.
The original Ogulin family had left their home in the country now known as Croatia (previously part of the Austro-Hungarian empire) and emigrated to the U.S., traveling via Ellis Island. On arrival in Lake County, they planted a small vineyard, dug a well and built a home, barn and simple winery. Remarkably, the primitive homestead still stands today.
Ascertaining the ancient vine’s identity took time and TLC. The first step was to tend and water the woody old-timer so it could produce leaves and tissue for analysis. Tests carried out by UC Davis vine experts confirmed that this was indeed Cinsault, a late-ripening black grape variety commonly found in Central Europe, and it was planted in the 1870s.
The test results encouraged the Shannon Ridge team. Their historic find had heroically withstood Lake County’s drought-prone climate for over a century. Perhaps it could be used to write a new chapter in their estate’s story?
New Vines from Old
Cinsault is prone to disease, so the first step was to test vine tissue for viruses. Happily the results were negative, giving the green light for cultivation. The Shannons reached out to Yolo County’s Guillaume Grapevine Nursery and, in 2017, launched a complex “new from old” project to generate more Cinsault.
The team harvested a handful of buds from the original vine, and the grafting, propagation and planting procedure began. The work was time-consuming: after all, Mother Nature moves at her own speed.
To create the new vines, the nursery team used hydroponic bench grafting, a process that involves creating a new plant from a scion (e.g. a cutting) of an existing parent. The new plant is genetically identical to its parent, and the process ensures that the original vine’s desirable traits—such as fruit quality and resistance to certain pests or diseases—are preserved in the offspring.
Using buds collected from the “mother,” Guillaume CEO Euguenio Figueroa and his team produced 210 grafted green vines from which 7,808 bare-rooted vines were grown. By 2023, a one-acre plot of Cinsault was thriving in the blood-red volcanic soils of Shannon Ridge.
As Joy Merrilees, the vice president of production at Shannon, explains, the Mother Vine venture dovetails with their grander strategy: to make fresh wines with less alcohol and a reduced environmental footprint out of organically farmed grapes that can withstand drought—a case of using “the right grape in the right place,” she says.
The fruit of the new vines was vinified the first time in 2023, using the saignée method, a way to make rosé that involves bleeding juice from crushed grapes to limit skin contact. This results in a delicate, floral, pretty pale pink wine with plenty of natural acidity.
The 2023 vintage of Mother Vine Rosé entered the market in May 2024, a decade after the initial discovery of the aged parent vine.
The final bottling is a 40/60 blend of Cinsault and Grenache Noir and the plan is to introduce more Cinsault to the wine as plantings mature. Another 5.3 acres are already firmly rooted and will be ready to pick in 2025.
It comes in an eye-catching frosted bottle with attractive floral motifs, and can be found at Lake County's Mercantile tasting room, as well as on the Shannon Ridge website.
The wine is certainly a heartwarming grape-to-glass story, and the owners of the drought-defying matriarch hope that the new genetically identical vines will be just as resilient. “It's impressive to be able to drink a glass of wine from grapes that taste exactly the same as they did over 150 years ago,” enthuses Figueroa.
Beating the Heat
Shannon Ridge’s revival of its Cinsault vines is emblematic of a wider trend happening in the wine industry: cultivating varietals that can withstand the effects of climate change.
With its large, juicy black berries and low sugar content, Cinsault is typically grown in hot, arid regions including the south of France, especially the regions of Languedoc, Provence and the lower Rhône valley; Corsica; Lebanon; Morocco; Algeria; Tunisia; South Africa and Australia, where its ability to tolerate drought and heat make it popular.
Indeed, Cinsault may have a role to play in a warming world. In 2017, a regional research program was launched in Provence to create varietals that are resistant to disease (which reduced the need for vineyard treatments) as well as heat and drought. Gilles Masson—the director of France's Centre du Rosé, a research and experimentation center for rosé wine in Provence—points out that Cinsault withstood France's record-beating 2003 heatwave, proving that it can survive increasingly common severe weather events.
Leading grape geneticist José Vouillamoz spells out Cinsault's heat-beating super powers. “It's a drought-tolerant variety, and the reason for this is simply genetics,” he says, going on to explain that this feature is the result of several genes involved in the vine’s stress response, water regulation and cellular homeostasis processes.
Meanwhile, it’s not just environmental creds that are making Cinsault desirable. And as wine trend watchers know, there’s a swing towards lighter wines with brighter acidity, more refreshment and less alcohol.
Masson confirms that “Cinsault brings finesse, fluidity and freshness, and it can create really drinkable wines.” Vouillamoz adds that “compared to other varieties, Cinsault makes wines with lower alcohol levels, and in a changing climate, this is increasingly sought after.”
According to the experts, this under-appreciated grape could be ripe for a renaissance. With wine regions of the world getting warmer, vintners are looking for varieties that can beat the heat. Subtle, perfumed Cinsault—once a workhorse grape reserved for blends and bulk wines—might be set for a comeback.
Clay Shannon claims that besides being well-suited to the Northern California climate, Cinsault has economic advantages: “We're taking a 1,000-acre vineyard in the mountains that has been affected by climate change and turning it into a smart investment, harvesting fruit that matches the tastes of current and future consumers while reducing our carbon footprint and maintaining our yields.”
The Shannon Ridge story shows that Cinsault is certainly hardy. Time will tell if the new vines planted in Lake County can make wines that meet contemporary drinkers’ tastes. But the future for Cinsault looks bright.
More Grape Cultivation Coverage
- Read our beginner’s guide to hybrid grapes.
- The truth behind your favorite wines involves crossed and hybrid vines.
- What is the difference between wine and table grapes?
- Outside of Rome, ancient grapes are making a comeback.
- What, exactly, is an Indigenous grape?
- These French winemakers are reviving rare, ancient grapes.
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Published: November 21, 2024
