Vintage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see vintage (disambiguation).
Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product.
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.
Contents |
[edit] 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).
Roman Weil, co-chairman of the Onenonomy Society of the US, tested the controversial hypotheses that experienced wine drinkers "cannot distinguish in blind tastings the wine of years rated high from those of years rated low, or, if they can, they do not agree with the vintage chart’s preferences” (Weil).
Dr. Weill used wines ranging from four to 17 years beyond their vintage with 240 wine drinkers and found that the tasters couldn’t distinguish between wines of good and bad vintages, except for Bordeaux wines. And even when they could make a distinction, the match between the tasters' individual assessments and the charts' rankings were little better than tossing a coin. When the tests were replicated with wine experts including French wine academics, the results were again the same as chance.
Many critics believe that Bordeaux has the world’s largest variance in vintages.[citation needed] Indeed, Weil found that "tasters can distinguish the Excellent from the Appalling one, even if they didn’t agree with which is the Appalling one."
Weil doesn’t consider a vintage chart to be useless. He suggests using one to help "find good buys in wine. Buy wine from the Appalling years," which will be priced far below its actual quality.
The subject of the importance of vintage is one about which disagreement can be expected to continue.
[edit] Miscellaneous
- In Spain, wine regulators publish official classifications of each vintage.
- A common Bordelais saying is "The best vintage is the vintage we have to sell" (Greene).
[edit] Other meanings
Vintage can also mean of or pertaining to the vine.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Greene, Joshua. Bordeaux 2005. Wine & Spirits, June 2006, 25(3), 24-26.
- Laube, James. A caveat for Cabernet. Wine Spectator, June 15, 2006, 31(4), 37.
- Prial, Frank J. Wine talk: So who needs vintage charts. 'New York Times, February 9, 2000, B1 & B14.
- Marsano, Bill. Vintage nonsense. Hemisphere (United Airline's magazine), May, 2001.
- Weil, Roman L. Parker v. Prial: The death of the vintage chart. Oenometrie VIII. Eighth annual meeting of the Vineyard Data Quantification Society (VDQS) in Saint Helena, California; published in VDSQ, May, 2001.[1]
