Like most people, we tend to spend a bit more on wine at Christmas. So is it important to take vintage into account when buying your wines for the festive season?
Well, yes and no! It depends a little upon what you are buying, how much you are paying and where it comes from.
Lets take sparkling wine as a good example. Most sparkling wine is non-vintage. That means it’s a blend of wines from several different years, blended together to form a consistent ‘house style’. Vintage sparkling wines (that mention a year on the label), are from one year only and are therefore likely to differ from one year to another.
Maintaining consistency in a wine is important if it has a branded image. The consumer needs to know that the wine will taste the same from one year to the next. Champagne is the best example of this but also any big branded still wine from a big producer such as Yellow Tail, Sutter Home and Hardy’s.
Small producers are not trying to make standardised wines that taste the same each year. Add climate into the mix and then it begins to get a bit more complicated. Wines from cool climate wine regions and in particular, Europe differ from one year to the next. Each year presents the growers with different climatic conditions; rainfall, heat, sunshine, frost, diseases. These factors in turn will determine the style of wine made in that particular year.
Here in the Loire we have a lot of vintage variation. Take the 2008 Savennières for example that we enjoyed last night. This vintage was more successful for white wines than reds in the Loire as we didn’t have a hot summer (although the reds were lovely and fruity). There is an unmistakeable aroma on the 2008 whites that I absolutely love and it’s one of those vintages that when I stick my nose in the glass for a sniff it just shouts out 2008 straight away. Oozing tropical fruit notes, honeysuckle, mango and peach it smells almost like it’s going to be a sweet wine and is then completely dry on the palate. We enjoyed it with salmon served with a Pernod mayonnaise cream but it would also have been a perfect match for foie gras.
Over half of production in the Loire is white wine but you can find lovely reds too from the Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and Gamay. We’ve had some good vintages in recent years and the wines from 2018 are shaping up beautifully. On the shelf however you are more likely to find red wines from:
2009 – still robust and rich with present tannins that are now beginning to soften
2010 – lovely wines that have beautifully integrated tannins and an enticing freshness on the palate
2011 – rich and fruity with ripe sweet fruit. Leaning more towards a hotter climate style
2012 – tricky year with lots of rain at the beginning of the season – good wines with medium tannins that are soft
2013 – a difficult vintage – reds were very light and lean and not for keeping
2014 – a lovely vintage with balance and freshness
2015 – going back to a more fruit forward style
2016 – lovely ripe and fruity wines just tiny production due to spring frosts
2017 again lovely wines with ripe fruit and balance in tiny quantities due to spring frost
In white wines, we prefer the vintages that are cooler as whites then retain the beautiful acidity that the Loire is known for.
2010 – lovely wines with fabulous acidity and minerality
2012 – tricky year but some nice wines – drinking now
2013 – difficult for reds but some lovely fresh whites from the Loire in this year
2014 – nice balance and freshness
2015 – lower acidity and fatter than in cooler years
2016 – nice wines with ripeness and freshness – tiny quantities
2017 – again lovely wines just little of them due to spring frost
When it comes to sweet wines from the Chenin Blanc grape:
2007 – wonderful year for sweet wine – fabulous acidity and expression for long ageing
2008 – lovely wines, tropical and honeyed
2012 – nearly no sweet wine made due to the weather breaking at the end of the season
2013 – very small quantities – light and fresh
Whichever wines you choose for your festivities, I hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing which ones you have enjoyed most.
