What makes a vintage?

Is the year, or vintage, on a label important or not? This very much depends where the wine comes from. If the wine is from Bordeaux or Burgundy, the answer is yes – from Chile or Argentina probably no.

The finest wines are grown where the climate is marginal for the grape variety in question – by marginal I mean just enough heat and sunshine to ripen the grapes over a long growing season. This involves pretty dicey weather at the beginning (frosts etc) and at the end (rain), as all of us who grow vegetables in this country know only too well. A shorter, hotter growing season with a stable climate is far easier to grow grapes in – but the results generally don't have the same intensity, concentration or flavour as their colder climate counterparts.

In Bordeaux the greatest vintage there has ever been was 1961 – the wines from that year are still drinking now and are an experience that all of us should try at least once in our lifetime. What happened that year? There was a serious spring frost which reduced the crop size by about 60 per cent (small yields concentrate flavour and make great wine) followed by absolutely perfect summer and autumn weather – hot, dry with light winds.

Recent 'great' years in Bordeaux include 1982, 1990, 2000 and 2005, although the enormous improvement in vineyard management and wine making means Bordeaux does not really have bad years any more.

In Burgundy the great years were 1969, 1978, 1990, 1996 and 2005; in the Rhone, 1990, 1998 and 2005 again. For vintage port, 1963, 1977 and 2000. A word of caution here – with vintage Cognac, Armagnac and whisky, the vintage is irrelevant. What matters is the length of time between the vintage and the bottling date because once bottling takes place the liquid remains static and does not mature one jot.

In Chile and Argentina? Well, every year is a vintage year – good but never great. ·