St. Francis Winery Old Vines Zinfandel California Red Wine

St. Francis Winery tells its own beginning as a clear line: Joe Martin planted the first vineyard in 1971, the winery opened its doors in 1979, and the Kopf family came in as a partner in 1988. Those are the winery's dates, not the bottle's.

We do not have a shopper rating for this wine. The name says Old Vines, and the origin is California. Our grape research does count vine age among the things that shape Zinfandel, together with how ripe the fruit is picked, though it warns that age, harvest timing and alcohol can each swing the result; the winery's own product page states its Old Vines standard, at least 50 years old and often past 100, without giving the precise age of the vines behind this particular bottle.

In our September 2026 checks, the price ranged from $22.99 to $31.99 across the seven stores we found it in. The producer's own product page describes the wine as having a "layered balance of acidity and tannin," with "real structure and a full, textured feel from first sip to last," the maker's words rather than ours. The winery does say it farms more than 400 acres of certified sustainable vineyards across Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley.

St. Francis draws this bottling from several named Sonoma County vineyards: Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma Valley, Russian River Valley and the Moon Mountain District. The winery's own standard for the Old Vines label is specific, vines at least 50 years old and, by its account, often past 100, dry-farmed and trained to stand without a trellis, "reaching deep for water." Zinfandel presents a particular challenge at harvest, the winery notes, because "on a single cluster, the berries ripen at different rates and grow to different sizes," a natural spread the producer credits for the finished wine's layered balance. The winery's product page credits founding winemaker Tom Mackey with establishing the program in the 1970s, and says Katie Madigan, the current winemaker, has built on it since.

Our call: a sound choice if a named, decades-old vine standard and several Sonoma County vineyards on record are the kind of detail you want behind an Old Vines label; St. Francis states its 50-year minimum plainly and names Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma Valley, Russian River Valley and Moon Mountain District as sources. Pass if you need a shopper rating or the vines' exact age to decide; neither is on our record, and the winery's own numbers stop at the standard, not this vineyard's specific years.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.