Vintage

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product. more...

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A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown in a single specified year. In certain wines it can denote quality, as in Port, where Port houses make and declare "vintage" Port in their best years. From this tradition, a common, though incorrect, usage applies the term to any wine that is perceived to be particularly old or of a particularly high quality.

Most countries allow a vintage wine to include a portion of wine that is not from the year denoted on the label. Australia, New Zealand and the member states of the European Union require 85% same-year content for vintage-dated wine. In Chile and South Africa, the requirement is only 75%. In the United States, the requirement is 85%, unless the wine is designated with an AVA, (e.g., Russian River Valley), in which case it is 95%. Technically, the 85% rule in the United States applies equally to foreign imports, but there are obvious challenges in enforcing the regulation.

The opposite of a vintage wine is a nonvintage wine, which is usually a blend from the produce of two or more years. This is a common practice for winemakers seeking a consistent style of wine, year on year.

The effect of vintage disputed

The importance of vintage, however, both varies and is disputed.

In wine produced on the colder limits of wine production, vintage is often very important because some seasons will be much warmer and produce riper grapes and better wine. On the other hand, a poor growing season can lead to grapes low in sugar, which lowers the quality of the resulting wine.

In many wine regions, especially in the New World, growing seasons are much more uniform. In dry regions, the systematic and controlled use of irrigation also contributes to uniform vintages. However, such wines are regularly labeled by vintage because of consumer demand.

Wines of superior vintages from prestigious producers and regions will often command much higher prices than those from average vintages. This is especially the case if wines are highly tannic and likely to improve further with some age in the bottle. Some vintage wines are only made in better-than-average years, to maintain their quality and reputation; while the vast majority of wines are produced to be drunk young and fresh. In such cases, a vintage is usually considered unimportant. However, it can serve to protect consumers against buying a wine that wouldn't be expected to improve with age and could be past its best, such as with Beaujolais nouveau, a wine style made to be consumed within months of its bottling.

The importance of vintage may sometimes be exaggerated. For example, New York Times wine columnist Frank J. Prial declared the vintage chart to be dead, writing that “winemakers of the world have rendered the vintage chart obsolete” (Prial) and Bill Marsano wrote that “winemakers now have the technology and skills to make good and even very good wines in undistinguished years” (Marsano). The Wine Spectator's James Laube has asserted that "even an average vintage can yield some grand wines" (Laube).

Read more at Wikipedia.org