What does the vintage on a wine bottle mean?

The vintage names the year in which the grapes came off the vine. It is therefore an indication of the weather of that growing season and of the age of the wine.

A bottle from a cool year and a bottle from a warm year come from the same vineyard, but not from the same season. The vintage is the shortest way to put that difference on the label.

It says nothing about when the wine was bottled. A red wine can spend two years in cask before it goes into the bottle, and the year on the label remains the year of the harvest.

No, the European rules allow some leeway: at least 85 percent of the grapes must come from the stated year. The rest may come from another harvest.

That margin is in delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33, the set of rules that harmonises the labelling of wine throughout the European Union. The same limit of 85 percent applies to stating a grape variety.

On the label you do not see that 15 percent anywhere. So you buy a wine from a year, not necessarily a wine that comes entirely from that year.

Wines that are deliberately blended from several harvests carry no vintage, because no single year reaches the required 85 percent.

Sherry is the clearest example. In the criaderas y solera system, wine is drawn from the bottom row of casks and that row is topped up from the row above, year after year. The wines that go into the bottle are a blend of many harvests; the Pliego de Condiciones requires a maturation of at least two years.

A lot of sparkling wine is made this way too. The aim is then a fixed style that tastes the same every year, and a vintage year does not fit with that.

In the Southern Hemisphere the harvest falls in the first months of the calendar year, so a vintage year there means grapes picked half a year earlier than in Europe.

Wine Australia had already estimated the Australian 2026 harvest at 1.27 million tonnes, the smallest in more than 25 years, while in Europe the 2026 grapes were still on the vine.

For the bottle in your hand that means: a 2026 from Australia or Chile is, when released, older than a 2026 from France or Italy.

The harvest starts earlier in the year than it used to, and for Beaune in Burgundy that is measured over 664 years.

Researchers compared harvest data from 1354 to 2018. Between 1354 and 1987 the harvest began on average on 28 September; in the period 1988 to 2018 on average on 15 September, so 13 days earlier.

The year on the label thus remains the same concept, but it stands for a growing season that has become shorter and warmer.