When the year on the label matters.

A vintage chart compresses a whole region's year into a single score. Read that score as a verdict on every bottle and it will mislead you. So does vintage matter in wine? In cool, marginal regions it matters a great deal. In warm, stable ones it matters much less. In both, the producer usually matters more than the chart.

A vintage report summarises one growing season across a whole region, often written early and averaged hard. Used as a starting hypothesis, it is useful. Used as a shopping list, it will steer you away from some of the best-value bottles you can buy and towards some of the slowest to open.

Why vintages differ

A vintage is one year's weather written into the wine. The vine's season runs from budburst in spring to harvest in autumn. Each stage carries its own risk.

• Spring frost. A cold night after budburst can kill young shoots and cut the crop before the season has properly begun.
• Flowering. Cold, wet or windy weather while the vines flower leads to poor fruit set: fewer berries, sometimes of uneven size.
• Hail. Brief, violent and very local. It can shred leaves and split grapes in one village and miss the next entirely.
• Summer heat and drought. Riper grapes, more sugar and so more alcohol, less acidity. In extreme heat the vine can shut down and ripening stalls.
• Rain at harvest. Swollen, diluted grapes and the risk of rot, which forces a hurried pick or a ruthless sort.

These events hit quantity and quality differently. A spring frost can cut a crop sharply and leave what remains in fine shape; a wet harvest can bring plenty of grapes and little concentration. In the glass, a cool year tends to mean higher acidity, lighter body and sometimes a green edge. A hot year means riper fruit, more alcohol and softer acidity.

The pattern is also shifting. A record of harvest dates in Beaune going back to 1354 shows that from 1988 to 2018 picking began on average 13 days earlier than over the previous six centuries. Hot, dry years that were once outliers there have been the norm since 1988. Old vintage wisdom was built on the fear of unripe grapes. Today the hottest year is no longer automatically the best one.

Where vintage matters in wine and where it hardly does

Vintage matters most where grapes ripen near the limit of what the climate allows, so that one cold or wet season decides whether the fruit gets properly ripe. Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Germany and northern Italy are the classic cases. Bordeaux adds a twist: reports often treat the Left Bank and the Right Bank separately, because Merlot ripens earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon and a late spell of rain can hurt one far more than the other.

It matters least in warm regions with dependable, dry summers, where grapes ripen fully in most years. It matters little, too, in wines blended across a large area to taste the same every year. Vintage still counts there, but mostly through extremes such as a heatwave or a drought rather than a yearly struggle to ripen.

What a vintage chart averages away

A chart gives a whole region one number or one line. Three things disappear in the averaging.

• The producer. In a difficult year the best growers pick when their own grapes are ready, sort harder and send weaker lots to a second wine or sell them off. What carries the top label is still the best of the crop.
• The site. Hail falls on one hillside and not the next. Frost settles in low ground and spares the slopes. Well-drained vineyards cope better with a wet year. This is terroir at work within a single season.
• The style. One year can favour one grape or one colour over another. A year that is ordinary for red Bordeaux can be superb for Sauternes, which depends on noble rot and its own autumn weather. A cool year that disappoints lovers of big wines may delight anyone who prizes freshness.

Charts also age badly. Early scores are given to wines in barrel or just bottled. Some vintages praised on release close up for years, while others dismissed at first turn out charming and ready early. The most celebrated years are often the slowest to open, which is why a wine's drinking window matters more to your dinner than the score does.

A vintage report is a starting hypothesis, not a verdict on your bottle.

The case for off vintages

An off vintage is trade shorthand for a year the reports rate below average. For a drinker it is often the smart buy, for three reasons.

1. Good producers still make good wine. Strict sorting and a willingness to declassify do much of the work. The wine that reaches the top label has earned it.
2. The wines are usually ready sooner. Lighter years tend to have softer structure and open earlier, which suits anyone without a cellar and anyone ordering from a restaurant list.
3. The price follows the reputation, not the wine. A lesser vintage from the same estate usually costs less, sometimes much less. More on where that premium comes from in what you pay for in a bottle.

On a Hong Kong wine list this is worth remembering. A great name in a modest year is often ready to drink tonight, while the famous vintage beside it may still need a decade.

Non-vintage and declared vintages

Some wines deal with vintage variation by design.

Most Champagne is non-vintage: a blend of several years, with older reserve wines added to keep the house style steady. Here the missing year is the point. Vintage Champagne is usually made only in years a house judges good enough and must spend at least three years in the cellar before release, against at least 15 months for non-vintage. The back label tells you more, as set out in how to read a Champagne label.

Port goes further. A Port house declares a vintage only in years it judges exceptional, so the word Vintage on a Port label is itself a verdict on the year. In good years that fall short of a declaration, the larger houses often bottle a single-estate vintage instead. The whole family is set out in the guide to the types of Port.

How to use a vintage report well

Read a report as a hypothesis, then test it.

• Read the words, not just the number. The text tells you what went right and wrong: a hot summer, rain at harvest, frost in April. From that you can judge which styles and sites came through best.
• Check the date. A report written at harvest or from barrel predicts. One written ten years on records what actually happened in bottle, which is worth far more.
• Go regional. One score for a whole country or even for all of Bordeaux hides the split between banks, villages and colours.
• Then taste. One bottle opened now tells you more about your wine than any chart.
• Follow producers. Once you trust a grower, their name is a better guide than the year. Buy them in lesser years too.

The same logic applies to birth-year and anniversary bottles, where the year is fixed and the quality is not. Choose the best producer you can find in that year and check how the bottle has been kept, because for an older wine condition matters more than the vintage. There is more on this in choosing wine as a gift in Hong Kong.

The practical rule

Use the vintage to narrow the field, the producer to choose and your own tasting to decide. In cool regions, check the year and the producer; in warm ones, the producer is usually enough. Never let a famous year talk you out of a great grower's off vintage, which will often give you more pleasure, sooner. If your cellar leans heavily on a few celebrated years, a cellar review will show where the gaps are.