Vintages Matter

What is the vintage of a wine? Well, it's the year on the bottle. Some bottles, often sparkling wine or particularly inexpensive wine might be labeled NV or non-vintage and some bottles simply skip that labeling altogether, but the year that is shown on the label is the year in which the grapes were harvested. Usually, but not always, they come from a single year -- a single harvest.

Who cares? I do. And you do, as well, even though you might not realize it.

Consider, for example, Chateauneuf du Pape in the southern Rhone. The wines produced there that are able to be classified as appelation d'origine controllee (AOC) are typically wonderful expressions of the famous grapes for which the area is known, most commonly Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre. These wines are often long-lived and do improve with age, up to a point, but that point can be pretty far out.

However, consider the 2002 vintage. It rained. It rained some more. And, then it kept on raining. Vineyards flooded. Many estates either skipped the vintage altogether or declassified (bottled them under a different innocuous label not associated with the AOC or the estate) the wines. I tasted one of the wines that was supposedly among the best of the vintage and it was not remotely good. It was not even mediocre. It was swill.

Compare to 2010. The wines were nearly perfect. Rich, concetrated, luxurious, full-bodied, ageworthy, and any other superlative you might choose to attach. I've been fortunate enough to taste several of these and while they are still quite young, they are absolutely incredible.

Same estates. Same vineyards. Same vines producing the same varieties of grapes. Very different wines.

I know; you still don't care because you don't get to drink these wines.

I am going to pick on one of my favorite value wines. Kirkland Rioja Riserva Yes, the Costco house brand. The first vintage of this wine that I ever tasted at the lofty price of $6.99 was the 2009. I did a double-take. At this low price, the wine tasted really good. And, then the 2010 vintage was even better. Since then, we have bought a fair amount from every vintage.

Finally, for the 2015 vintage, the price increased to $7.99. Now, that's still a value for what has frankly been a very good wine. I expect I have recommended this wine to 200 people.

Just recently, the stores started to carry the 2016 vintage. We've had two bottles. They have not been good. Really not good. They've not been at all expressive and certainly not of the flavors one would expect from Rioja. It's just a horrible miss.

I raise this because this is ordinarily a very approachable wine both from a price standpoint and from a drinking standpoint.

Vintage really does matter.

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