WineInk: Is vintage important?
Alma Rosa Winery/Courtesy photo
“What’s the vintage?”
It’s a frequently asked and very legitimate question when someone is poured a glass of wine. And the vast majority of wines, with a few exceptions (non-vintage champagne, for example), list the vintage right on the label. But is the vintage of a wine — identifying the year the majority of grapes in a bottle were harvested — something that should matter to the average wine drinker? Well, yes, and no.
Let’s start with the yes. In certain years, specific regions are blessed with perfection: Perfect sunshine, perfect moisture, perfect temperatures. The wines made in these regions in these years, or vintages, have been deemed exceptional. This perfection can make all the difference in producing an outstanding wine. And the reverse is true, as well. While there can be good wines made from vintages that are, shall we say, below par weather wise, in most cases, a difficult vintage makes it harder to make great wines.
For those who love and collect the wines of Bordeaux, for example, just hearing the years “1961” and “1982” makes them drool. More recently, the red wines from Bordeaux in 2022 seem likely to be from one of those vintages that inspire people to talk about them with wonder and glee. Conversely, the most recent vintage in Bordeaux, 2024, was challenging with a September harvest punctuated by heavy rains and cool temperatures in the region causing some concern for wines from the vintage. C’est la vie.
Is burgundy more your bag? If you favor the reds, the wines made from the pinot noir grape, then check out wines released from the 2020 vintage that are currently available. The whites, the Chablis, Montrachet, and Meursault wines of the region are also perceived by “Burghounds” — as fans of the region are sometimes known — as something special.
Because these vintages are so highly touted, the prices for many of those wines, especially the prominent names, are already climbing high. A year designated a great vintage in an iconic region of the wine world translates into pure gold for the producers and distributors of the wines. It sets collectors in motion, and the prices are driven up for decades to come. These wines are bought by investors and collectors to be held and, like Aspen real estate, treasured, as they increase in price.
There are also many single-vineyard wines around the world that are judged on the basis of vintage variations. Artisan winemakers are often obsessed with producing wines that reflect the year in which those wines were grown, capturing a moment in time and place in a bottle of that particular vintage.
For those types of wines, vintage matters dramatically. But for the average drinker, the vintage of the wines they drink may not be as important.
There once was a time when winemakers, burdened by a bad vintage, would labor to turn bad grapes into okay wines. But today, the sophistication and technology of the wine industry have evolved to the point where even in bad vintages, there are enough good grapes to ensure that what goes into the bottle is quaffable.
Today, for the average consumer, the quality of even less expensive value wines has increased to the extent that the vicissitudes of a rough vintage can be compensated for. Industrial or large-scale producers today put more effort into consistency and the consumers expectation of what their wine should taste like rather than focusing on the variations of an individual growing year.
That is not to say that there are not better years for that Napa Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon you may love and that you shouldn’t pay attention to the vintage when you are paying $100-plus per bottle for your wines. But if you are drinking an affordable California Zinfandel or a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, for example, if it is made by a reputable producer, chances are good that the variations in the wines will be more reflective of the wine’s style than the effects of the year’s weather.
A red wine made by the same producer from the same region or vineyard from a warm vintage may be bigger and jammy-er than one from a cool season, which may show more austerity. But whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the palate of the taster. Today there are fewer variations in the quality of winemaking, as producers have the ability to coax the best from the grapes before bottling.
So what about the 2024 vintage? Well, in the Napa and Sonoma regions of California producers are extremely pleased that Mother Nature provided exceptional weather conditions for a second straight classic vintage, with quality expected to be very high. There was a spike in heat in the summer months that followed solid winter rains, and for the most part, conditions created little in the way of drama.
Statewide the news was a bit more concerning as the yields — the number of tons of grapes harvested throughout California — fell by 23% from 2023 to their lowest level since 2014. But this may reflect the trials and tribulations of a troubled wine market more than the effects of the weather on the vintage. It is something to keep an eye on.
Regardless, the wines produced in California in the 2024 vintage should be something to look forward to.
