🏷️ Vintage

Vintage is the year of the grape harvest from which a wine is made. It is shown on the label. The year matters because the weather differs from year to year. In a warm year the berries are sweeter, in a cold and rainy one more acidic. So wine from the same estate can differ from year to year.

How is it regulated? Under European Union rules, to show a year on the label at least 85% of the grapes in the wine must come from that year. The rest may be from another harvest. If there is no year, the wine is called non-vintage. For example, non-vintage Champagne is blended from wines of different years to keep a steady taste.

Vintage is especially important for port. There, vintage port is released only in the best years, and such wine is laid down for long ageing. Close to this is the sense of vintage as an aged wine: a wine is sometimes called vintage when it is valued precisely for its year.

Today climate change also affects vintages: it shifts harvest dates and changes the taste of wines. The year on a bottle helps to understand what the season was like.