You’ve probably noticed that most wines have a year stamped on their labels. This is referred to as the vintage, but what is that?

Simply put, a vintage is the year that grapes were harvested to make a wine. It is the key to telling you what the wine might taste like compared to other years it was made. 

Grape vines are perennial plants, meaning they go through their life cycles, from dormancy to harvest, over the course of a year. They wake up from their cold winter sleep and sprout little buds, the first sign of life, when the temperature is above 50 degrees. 

These buds eventually turn into leaves, canes, and, most importantly, flowers. If set properly, the flowers become grape berries, and if taken care of, they ripen and are picked for the purpose of winemaking.

In the northern hemisphere we harvest grapes between August and November, and in the southern hemisphere it’s between February and May. This means that wines from places like Australia are often ready to be bottled when grapes in France are just being picked — even though they will have the same vintage date on them. 

There are several exceptions. One is the production of ice wine, or Eiswein, a sweet wine made from frozen berries. In the north it may not be cold enough to pick the grapes until January following the regular harvest. These wines will be labeled with the previous year’s vintage, meaning they were most affected by that year’s weather patterns. 

In some countries, like America, you can blend in up to 15 percent of a previous vintage and not be required to disclose that on the label. This practice is relatively rare in fine wine, but it’s quite common in bulk or high-volume wine brands.

You may also notice that some high-volume wines, and most sparkling wines, aren’t labeled with a vintage at all. They may say NV for non-vintage — a bit of a misnomer, as they contain many vintages rather than no vintages — or MV for multi-vintage, a more literal if rare application of the term.

Oddly enough, in the tropics, where there is no winter, vines don’t go into dormancy. Instead vines produce two crops a year, producing two different wines with the same vintage each year.

Now you know what a vintage is, the real question is: Does it matter? A vintage declaration can help guide you in your buying decisions. It is one small clue toward what you might expect to find in a bottle.