Forget About the Current Vintage

You may not want to forget about it, but don’t take the reviews too seriously either. Among wine writers, there’s a consensus that the buying public deserves a quality assessment of each new vintage before they buy it. It’s a pact between writers who need regular content and PR reps seeking press for their clients. I subscribed to this practice for three decades. When I started this newsletter, though, I vowed to stop reviewing new releases unless exceptional circumstances warranted it, or unless the winery provided some older bottles for comparison.

Here’s the reasoning behind this contrarian thinking:

You’re going to drink it anyway: Say you’re a big fan of Château Wannabee. You have a vertical collection in your cellar, you pour it for guests at home, and you frequently order it in restaurants. Then you read a review in your favorite glossy magazine proclaiming that this year’s version doesn’t measure up to the glories of the past. How will this change your buying and consumption habits?

It probably won’t. You don’t want a gap in your collection, and you’ll still order it in a restaurant—in fact, you may not even note the vintage date on the label when the wine is presented to you. Bragging rights aside, you’re drinking Château Wannabee because you like the style of the wine, and a critic’s opinion isn’t going to change that.

There’s almost no bad wine anymore: Nowadays, mediocre is usually as bad as it gets. This wasn’t always the case. When I first started drinking wine, roughly 100 years ago, winemaking technology was comparatively crude, and a significant percentage of bottles were spoiled in some way. We love to reminisce about how cheap wine used to be, but the reality is that a lot of it ended up being poured down the sink.

Many wines taste the same each year regardless of vintage conditions: If you buy a mass-produced wine, you’re purchasing a homogenized product. To be available on the supermarket shelf, a winery needs to churn out large quantities, frequently millions of cases. Those producers are buying grapes from dozens or hundreds of growers and blending them to achieve a house style, which is not likely to change each year. If you’re spending less than $25-30 on a bottle in a retail setting, or less than $60 in a restaurant, the grapes are generally not coming from estate vineyards (not all of them, certainly). On the upper end of the price scale, where the winery draws exclusively from vineyards they own, they’re at the mercy of nature—but technology can go a long way toward smoothing that out, and your affection for Château Wannabe will take you the rest of the way.

Newer isn’t necessarily better: We know that fine wines evolve with age, and the worst time to sample such a wine is within the first six months after release. Youthful, awkward and disjointed, it may have shut down partially or completely. Yet many critics and publications race to be the first to post their reviews. Typically, they include an estimate of the wine’s plateau of maturity, which is an educated guess at best.

A special warning about barrel samples: Unless the reviewer had access to the final blend, any impressions of the wine are meaningless. For a wine producer, the temptation to present the best barrel to a critic can be almost irresistible. The most obvious example is Bordeaux, where you are given a “barrel sample” out of a bottle when you visit an estate. Before they grant you an appointment, they want to know exactly who you are, so they know what kind of sample to cook up for you.

The effects of climate change: Once upon a time, there were cold climates and warm climates. Temperatures are now rising around the globe, and those days are almost over. Harvests start earlier in formerly cool climates such as Burgundy and Champagne, red wine varieties are being planted in the south of England, and some warm regions are struggling to prevent their grapes from roasting on the vines.

Ironically, the onset of climate change was initially a boon to growers in colder regions, since it provided a more consistent harvest. However, we all know where this is going. The situation is too complex to be dissected here, but the result—at least for the moment—is the absence of distinction between a good vintage and a poor one.

Winemaking skill: Talented winemakers tend to make good wine even in poor vintages. They have experience on their side, and they know how to avoid nature’s pitfalls in the same way a pilot skirts a tropical storm. Tasted blind, you may not be able to tell the difference between a “good” and “bad” vintage of your favorite wine.

So: Does any of this matter? Don’t expect glossy magazines and powerful critics to change their approach anytime soon. For my part, I’ve stepped off the hamster wheel. This will likely make me less appealing to PR reps (not necessarily a bad thing), and hopefully freer to deliver a better message about the essence of a particular wine estate.