Vintage Matters

You're drinking a wine that you really loved last year and this year, the bottle of the same wine that you opened just doesn't seem to taste very good. What's going on? 

Chances are, if you're like most people, that you are drinking wine from a different vintage. That means that the grapes were harvested in a different year -- presumably one year later. Does that really make that big a difference?

Let's consider what is different. The grapes are different. They are likely from vines that are one year older (it's unlikely that that makes much of a difference) or they were picked from different vines, the weather during the growing season was different, either the barrels in which the wine may have been aged either had one more year of previous aging on them or they were different barrels, the blend or blending is likely different. 

Ultimately, the vintage may make a tremendous difference. And, despite all their expertise, the experts can be very wrong in their predictions.

Let's consider, for example, two consecutive vintages of Napa Cabernet, those from 1997 and 1998. Upon release, 1997 was hailed as the vintage of the century. The growing season had been outstanding, the wines were drinkable early and showed the ability to age effortlessy often for 30 years or more based on expert predictions. In 1998, however, there was a spring frost, and then a major threat of heavy rain right before harvest ordinarily occurred. Many winemakers picked early. Some declassified their vintages (meaning they did not bottle under their normal labels). A few rolled the dice and held off picking until the last possible moment before the rains actually did come.

So, the obvious thing you want to know is how did it turn out.

The 1997s were amazing out of the box, so to speak. Typically released in 2000, they drank well young and showed tremendous promise. Collectors laid them down planning to drink them between 2010 and 2030. Then, something happened. Most of them tightened up, meaning that they seemed okay, but there was no really apparent flavor on the palate. They had lost their pizzazz. And, in the case of most of them, as of this writing, they still have not recovered (there are some notable exceptions, but for the most part, that vintage is long since gone).

The 1998s were not very good initially. Most of them received far lower ratings and were frankly not worth drinking early on. They were tight in their youth and showed no real signs of maturing into something worthwhile. Generally speaking though, they were bad enough that collectors held on to them in the hope that something good might happen.

And, then something good did happen. Somewhere in the 2005-2008 timeframe, a lot of those 1998s began to open up. And when they opened up, they really opened up. They showed a weight and complexity rarely seen in any Napa vintage up to that point. To many, they exceeded some of the legendary vintages most recently before that the 1994s.

The message here is that usually the experts are right, but the way that wine matures is truly only somewhat predictable. Some wines are far better after some aging. And, usually initial tastings done by experts give strong clues as to how well the wines will age. But, it's better to drink a wine a bit before it reaches its peak than after it has turned.

So, ultimately, drink wines in time and drink them often.