What does 'vintage' really mean?

The winemaking process can take months or sometimes years (Champagne) to complete. Don’t be surprised when a bottle takes years before reaching the market. So which year does the one on the label refer to? Across all French wine bottles, it refers to the year the grapes were picked. It refers to the harvest year and not the bottling year (i.e. harvest in September, bottling the following year(s)). The only exception to this is if the bottling and grape picking happened on the same year, like 'Beaujolais Nouveau' wines which are bottled shortly after harvest.

Regulations require some wines to be aged before being sold (for instance Bordeaux Superieur wines are required to age in barrels for 12 months).

Did you know that most of the champagnes are non-vintage champagnes?

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