How To Decode A Wine Label

It might seem that the biggest factor in ascertaining the quality and value of a wine is its vintage or year of harvest. After all, vintage Champagne is a prestigious product, and it seems as though Bordeaux wines are always referred to by year. Besides indicating the age of a bottle, in some cases, vintage can provide relevant information about a wine.

Primarily, what varies the most over any given year are the weather conditions throughout the season up until harvest (per Wine Folly). Was the summer sufficiently sunny for the grapes to ripen or was it so cold that the fruit didn’t develop enough sugar? Was the climate hot and dry or did it rain nonstop leading to issues with mold?

However, as Wine Folly points out, the significance of vintage varies depending on the region of the world. For example, places with finicky and highly variable weather, such as Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux in France, Piedmont in Italy, and Rioja in Spain, rely more heavily on good conditions. Meanwhile, California, Portugal, and Australia are some regions where the sun can usually be counted on to properly ripen the fruit. Additionally, unless you’re planning on storing wine for a length of time or are purchasing old wine from a particular vintage (in which case a vintage chart is a good resource), producers don’t aim to sell terrible wine — it may simply have undergone a few additional corrections in the cellar.