Vintage

Vintage is the year the grapes for a wine were harvested. On the label it often appears as a year, and so it tells you which season the wine comes from. It sounds trivial, but it holds quite a lot of information, because the weather changes from year to year, and it is precisely the weather during the growing season that leaves a clear mark on the grapes and thereby on the finished wine.

The vintage matters because two bottles from the same vineyard and the same producer can taste different depending on whether the summer was warm and sunny or cool and wet. A year with plenty of sun and warmth typically gives ripe grapes with more fruit and body, while a cooler season often gives fresher acidity and a lighter style. Frost or hail around flowering can reduce the harvest, and a lot of rain in the run-up to picking can dilute the flavour. That is why people talk about good and less good vintages in a region.

You recognise the vintage as the year on the label. Be aware that some wines deliberately have no vintage, because they are blended from several years to hit a consistent style. This applies, for example, to quite a few sparkling wines and certain fortified wines. A widespread misunderstanding is that an old vintage always means a better wine. In reality it is about the weather in that particular year and about the wine's ability to age.