There’s a reason winemakers are hunting for abandoned vineyards from Spain to California Old vines with ripening black grapes. Photograph: kbwills/Getty Images/iStockphoto Old vines with ripening black grapes. Photograph: kbwills/Getty Images/iStockphoto Sun 16 May 2021 08.00 EDT Old vines have a strange effect on winemakers. They exert an emotional pull close to enchantment – a kind of sylvan magic that becomes more powerfully bewitching the older the vine is. You notice it most keenly when you’re with a winegrower in their vineyard. You see the affection as they pat the trunks of the oldest plants, the wistful misting over of the eyes as they proudly reel off the vines’ age. The relationship may be emotional, but it’s not irrational, even if the science on the subject is somewhat sketchy and undeveloped.