Vintage Variation

When you look at a wine label you will normally see a year: this is the vintage, the year the grapes were picked. The weather in the vineyard during a given year affects the health and quality of the fruit, and with all the hazards growers face, some vintages produce healthier, tastier fruit than others. Climate variability works in several ways, depending on the region: cold extremes in winter, frost in spring and fall, high temperature events in summer, extreme rain or hail, and drought. Variation shows up in volume as well as quality: in October 2017 the OIV estimated world wine production at 246.7 mhl, one of the lowest levels for several decades, and put the drop down to climate hazards in the main producing countries.

• In cooler, cloudier years grapes won't get as ripe as in warmer, sunnier years, but too much heat can lead to overly jammy flavours or unpleasantly high alcohol levels
• Too much rain close to the harvest can make grapes taste watery and dilute, extreme drought can cause the vine to shut down, and overly damp and humid years can bring rot
• A harsh spring frost can wreak havoc with yield, and a hailstorm can destroy a healthy crop of grapes within minutes
• Even when a variety is planted in its optimum zone, vintage variations in weather and climate can drive large differences in fruit production and wine quality

For some wines the vintage affects not only the quality of what is in the bottle but also the price paid for it. Producers respond in two ways. Many larger brands blend wines from multiple vineyards or even regions to achieve consistency, so that the customer is unlikely to notice differences between vintages. Other producers, especially smaller producers and those focused on premium wines, embrace vintage variation, which means the style, quality and price of the same wine can be notably different from one year to the next. In Bordeaux the en primeur system also absorbs vintage risk: by selling to négociants, the châteaux effectively spread the risk of bad vintages.

• A great vintage is one where that year's weather was ideal for producing healthy grapes with optimal ripeness for the style of wine being made
• Négociants are more or less obliged to buy what the châteaux sell, because refusing in a bad year risks forfeiting their allocation for the next year, which may be a great year
• En primeur sales give the châteaux a ready source of cash that they would otherwise not recoup until the wine was bottled and sold
• Colin Hay, author of Decanter's en primeur buying guide, cautions that most buyers will not make much money, if any, from their en primeur purchases

A vintage can miss in two directions. If it is too cool, lower sugar levels, unripe flavors and unbalanced wines tend to result; if it is too warm, the result tends to be lower acid retention, overripe flavors and unbalanced wines. One climatologist's review adds that, in general, the less day-to-day temperature variability leading up to harvest, the better the wine quality. The best Bordeaux vintages tend to be years with gentle heat through the growing season, sufficient rainfall, and fine, relatively dry and warm autumns that allow steady and complete ripening, giving ripe, healthy fruit with a balance of tannins, sugar and acidity that lets the wines age for a long time. In Champagne, the finest vintages come from grapes that have reached a subtle balance between acidity and sugar levels, with sunlight and rainfall pivotal to both.

• There is some evidence that average night temperatures below 12°C (54°F) in the last month of the vintage suit cultivars that need cooler nights, and that those above 15°C (59°F) suit later-ripening varieties
• Bordeaux Left Bank (Graves and Médoc), 2003: generally on soils that retain humidity the wines showed deep, rich colour with low acidity, and some growers who systematically de-leaf found their grapes turned to raisins
• Bordeaux dry whites, 2003: the juice was high in sugars but very low in acidity, showing virtually no malic acidity
• The IVDP's vintage notes characterise the 2011 Vintage Ports as deep in colour, intense in aroma, fresh (good acidity) and structured on the palate

The 2003 harvest on the Bordeaux Left Bank followed rainfall 170 mm below the 30-year average by the end of May, then drought that worsened over a summer of scorching heat, in one of the most untypical years on record; the so-called 'lesser' (heavier) soil areas appeared to do better than the poorer terroirs normally expected to produce the great wines. In Burgundy, picking began on 13 August on the southern fringes of the region, some ten days earlier than the previous record, set in 1893, and prolonged heat and drought drastically reduced yields right across the region. In the Douro, 2011 brought a rainy winter, especially December, a warm, dry spring and a cool, dry summer with two exceptions in late August and early September, and the Symingtons credited strong winter rains in late 2010 with a 'crucial' role. Port houses also show variation at the level of declarations: 2009 was declared by Taylor, Fonseca and Croft but not by the Symington quartet of Dow, Graham, Warre and Cockburn, while 2011 was set to become the first widely declared year since 2007.

• Bordeaux 2003: on some forward Right Bank parcels, picking began on 19 August and finished by mid September, while in 2002 it had started on 19 September
• Champagne 2003: the harvest had the earliest start on record, on 18 August in the Côte des Bar village of Bligny, after an April frost the harvest report called the worst the appellation had ever seen
• Champagne 2003: the CIVC predicted an average harvest of around 6,000 kilos per hectare, about half the normal quantity allowed
• Douro 2017: an extremely dry, very hot year with several heatwaves in spring and early summer, which the IVDP rates as a year of exceptional quality that led to the largest Vintage declaration to date

Bordeaux prices a new vintage through the en primeur system. Every spring after the vintage, the cru classé properties produce barrel samples of the previous year's harvest, which are tasted and assessed by members of the international wine trade in Bordeaux. The châteaux then release a 'tranche', or proportion, of their total production at an opening price, sold in strict allocation to négociants, who then sell the en primeur offers. Consumers pay the opening price when their merchant makes the offer and usually receive the wine in spring or summer two years later. Not every estate stays in the system: Château Latour indicated it would not sell wine en primeur from the 2012 vintage onwards, making 2011 its last en primeur campaign.

• Wines that are not classified growths, but whose quality and price justify a futures allocation, are also offered en primeur
• En primeur offers are also found from Burgundy, the Rhône Valley, Italy, California and Australia
• Under Latour's new approach, set out by director Frederic Engerer, Château Latour and its second wine, Les Forts de Latour, would be sold through négociants when the château believes the wines are becoming ready to drink
• Over the previous decade Latour had been reducing the amount of wine it sold en primeur, building up supplies at the château

How much the year matters depends on the place. Parts of Chile have warm and dry summers almost every year, while Bordeaux experiences much greater vintage variation; even within the same village, some vineyards are more exposed to certain weather hazards. Champagne sits at the edge: Reims lies at a latitude of 49°5 north, quality grapes are generally considered difficult to obtain at the 50th parallel, and the weather can change drastically from one year to the next. Bordeaux, at around 45° latitude, lies at the cooler end of the latitudes suitable for grape growing; ripening was historically the challenge there but, with today's warmer climate, is now rarely an issue. In its November 2023 first estimate the OIV recorded year-over-year variations of between -10% and -30% in Australia, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Brazil, and expected 2023 world production to be the smallest since 1961.

• Many Champagnes carry no vintage because the wine is blended from a few different years; the region's cool climate and variable weather mean grapes can't always ripen fully, and blending evens things out
• The winemaker can add reserve wines, wines from previous years, to the current year's wine, and some vintages contain up to 50% reserve wines
• A Vintage Champagne carries its year's markers within it, and the choice to make one is up to the winemaker and the winemaker alone
• Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Port is a Ruby Port from a single year, chosen for its extremely high quality and bottled after ageing for four to six years in wood

Primary sources: https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2021/march/22/weather-wine-and-vintages, https://www.ivdp.pt/en/wines/port-wines/special-categories/, https://www.ivdp.pt/pt/vinhos/vinhos-do-porto/vintages/, https://www.champagne.fr/en/champagne-tasting/choosing-your-champagne/vintage-champagne, https://www.champagne.fr/en/champagne-tasting/type-of-champagne/non-vintage-brut, https://www.champagne.fr/en/from-vine-to-wine/wine-making/blending, https://www.oiv.int/public/medias/5681/en-communiqu-depresse-octobre-2017.pdf, https://www.oiv.int/press/2023-world-wine-production-expected-be-smallest-last-60-years, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/the-champagne-terroir/champagne-and-its-climate, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2022/july/14/what-makes-high-quality-bordeaux-wine. Secondary sources: https://www.decanter.com/learn/vintage-guides/en-primeur/bordeaux/buying-en-primeur-wines-389075/, https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/chateau-latour-leaves-en-primeur-31707/, https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/port-2011-hailed-classic-as-producers-rush-to-declare-19670/, https://www.decanter.com/learn/vintage-guides/harvest-reports-2003-51182/, https://www.guildsomm.com/public_content/features/articles/b/gregory_jones/posts/climate-grapes-and-wine. Last verified 2026-10-04