We are always glad to read about the progress made in documenting and preserving historic vineyards, whether in California by the Historic Vineyard Society or internationally through the Old Vine Registry. So, we were especially excited to read this announcement that the Old Vine Registry’s goal of documenting 10,000 vineyards by 2027 has already been reached…
Global Old Vine Registry Surpasses 10,000 Vineyards — A Major Milestone in Documenting the World’s Historic Vines
26th March 2026 – In just three years, a global effort to document the world’s oldest vineyards has reached a major milestone. The Old Vine Registry, the world’s leading public database dedicated to historic vineyards, announced today that it has surpassed 10,000 registered vineyards worldwide, achieving a goal originally set for 2027 more than a year ahead of schedule.
Launched in 2023 as a crowdsourced effort to identify and document living vineyards older than 35 years, the registry now spans 42 countries, representing more than 40,900 hectares of historic plantings and 1,144 grape varieties.
The project was created with a simple premise: we cannot protect what we do not first identify.
“Old vineyards are among the wine world’s most valuable agricultural and cultural assets,” said Alder Yarrow, Architect and Manager of the Old Vine Registry. “But until recently there has been no global effort to systematically document where they are, what they contain, and how old they are. The registry exists to change that.”
The initiative aligns closely with the goals of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), which in October 2024 adopted Resolution OIV-VITI 703-2024, formally defining “old vines” as those 35 years or older and recommending that wine regions promote the cataloguing of historic vineyards.
“When we launched the registry, I thought there might be tens of thousands of old-vine vineyards worth cataloguing around the world,” Yarrow said. “As the data has come in, it’s become clear that the real number may be in the hundreds of thousands. Reaching 10,000 vineyards this quickly shows how much momentum there is across the global wine community to document and celebrate these historic plantings.”
The registry has grown rapidly through contributions from growers, researchers, importers, and regional wine organizations around the world. Importers including Skurnik Wines, Becky Wasserman & Co., and Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant have helped document historic vineyards within their portfolios, while regional bodies such as Wines of Moldova, the Armenian Wine and Vine Foundation, and the Empordà Denomination of Origin have contributed data from their regions.
Beyond documenting vineyards, the project aims to raise awareness of their value and encourage their preservation.
“When vineyards are identified and documented, they become visible,” Yarrow said. “And when something becomes visible, it becomes something people value, celebrate, and ultimately protect.”
The 10,000th vineyard recently added was Beaumont Wine Estate’s Hope Vineyard, in the Bot River region of South Africa, planted to Chenin Blanc in 1974. With this milestone now reached, the Old Vine Registry is inviting growers, regions, and researchers worldwide to continue contributing vineyards to the database. New targets for vineyard counts remain to be set.
“We want every region with historic vineyards to be represented,” Yarrow said. “The more we document these places, the stronger the case becomes for preserving them.”
The registry can be explored, and vineyards submitted, at www.oldvineregistry.org.
Michael and Karen Perlis have been pursuing their passion for wine for more than 30 years. They have had the good fortune of having numerous mentors to show them the way and after a couple of decades of learning about wine, attending events, visiting wineries and vineyards, and tasting as much wine as they possibly could, they had the amazing luck to meet Eve Bushman. Michael and Karen do their best to bring as much information as possible about wine to Eve’s Wine 101 faithful readers.
