Does the vintage of the wine matter?

1 March 2024

When you are picking up a bottle (or two!) of wine at the wine shop or supermarket, does that date on the label mean anything? How important is it to the average wine drinker?

The date on the label – the wine’s vintage – represents the year in which the grapes used to make that wine were harvested. But is there more to it than that? What is a good or bad vintage? Should it influence what we buy?

a group of people are toasting with wine glasses

What is vintage?

A vintage wine gives you a specific experience of a wine region’s produce in a single year, taking into account the weather and growing conditions that year.

So a wine doesn’t have to be of a particular age to be classed as a good vintage, but the weather does need to have been just right in that particular year to allow the grapes to ripen to their full potential. The grape growing season in the northern hemisphere is from April to October, so the conditions in spring, summer and autumn are all essential for the grapes’ growth.

The quality and taste of a wine can be affected by its vintage. Just as with all crops, there are years in which all the conditions are perfect for harvesting grapes and years when they are very far from perfect. It is due to variations in weather that some vintages might be labelled as good, and others labelled as bad.

For example, if the weather in a particular year is dry, hot during the day and cool at night, there’s a good chance that the crops will be abundant and the grapes will be of a high quality – ripe and delicious. These grapes are likely to lead to a good vintage.

But if the growing season is rainy and humid or there is a frost before the harvest, there is likely to be a lower yield of grapes and the grapes won’t be as ripe and delicious, potentially leading to a vintage which isn’t as good.

The two key factors for a good vintage are sunshine and growing season conditions. A good amount of sun will ensure the consistency of the wine’s signature flavour – a balance between acidity, sweetness and tannin. Too little sun will slow grape maturity, especially if combined with too much rain, and can also cause imbalanced aromas, vine rot and even disease.

Vintage makes more of a difference in wine growing regions with more unpredictable weather. Californian, Southern European and Australian wines tend to be more consistent from year to year because their climates are more consistent. In these areas, there is less likely to be a good vintage and a bad vintage, and the vintage year loses much of its relevance. But the climate can be far more predictable in the UK and Northern Europe, meaning there can be more variation between vintages from one year to the next.

a row of vines in a vineyard with a blue sky in the background

Personal choice

Vintages certainly matter to collectors buying high-end bottles of wine as an investment and hoping to double or triple what they paid for it. But that isn’t the reality for 99.9% of wine drinkers. Most wine drinkers are just looking for a nice wine for dinner and, while the taste may vary a bit from one year to the next, the vintage isn’t a reason to choose or reject one bottle over another.

Vintage certainly matters less in the case of cheaper wines produced on an industrial scale for customers who care about price more than quality. For these wines, the levels of alcohol, sugar, acidity and PH are manipulated to create a consistent taste with a minimum of variation from year to year.

Your own tastes and what you want to use the wine for are actually very important considerations when thinking about whether vintage matters. Some people just prefer the taste of lighter, cheaper wines. And if you’re buying champagne for a party, it is a waste of money to splash out on vintage champagne when your guests are only interested in having a good time and really don’t mind what they are drinking!

You might think an older vintage is better than a newer one, but that isn’t always the case. Some wines are better drunk soon after release, while others taste better if they are a little older. For white and rose wines, they are often best enjoyed the same year as the label, or just a year later. Cheaper reds will last slightly longer. If you are spending slightly more, an earlier vintage might be more to your tastes.

Not all wines even have a vintage. Non-vintage wines are made by blending grapes from more than one year. These wines won’t have a year printed on the label, as they are made from two, three or even more harvests. This generally results in a more consistent taste and isn’t just for cheap wine. Champagne producers, for example, have a signature taste that they stick to. They may not be able to produce this consistency from a single harvest, so blend grapes from more than one year to achieve the signature taste they are aiming for.

The vintage of a wine is very important to a collector, or someone who is looking to sell it on to make a profit. But does the vintage of the wine really matter to the everyday wine drinker? For the vast majority of people, it really doesn’t matter at all, especially where they are paying under £20 for a bottle and buying it to drink immediately.

Most importantly, wine is there to be enjoyed – whatever the vintage.

More from our blog...

Choosing your wine for Christmas

25 November 2025
With the festive season just around the corner, thoughts turn to Christmas dinner, parties and celebrations. And whether you’re getting the party started or relaxing in front of the TV on Christmas Day evening, you may want to enjoy the festivities with a glass or two of wine. But how do you choose your wine for Christmas? Well the good news is, while you might want to splash out and choose something a bit more special than your usual tipple, there are no rights and wrongs when choosing wine for Christmas. Thomas Shaw, managing director of Three Choirs Vineyard, said: “Don’t feel as though there are any rules to follow. The most important thing is to drink what you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy red wine, don’t drink red wine, drink white instead!” Some people like to enjoy sparkling wine on Christmas Day. When it comes to sparkling wine, people tend to fall into two camps – those who love it and will drink it on every occasion and those who really don’t like it! If you’re someone who isn’t keen on sparkling wine, but you’ve got guests coming round who might enjoy a glass of something fizzy before Christmas dinner, there are a range of options. Thomas continued: “There’s no need to go crazy and buy something expensive. There is a big range of prices from Cava and Prosecco up to top of the range Champagne, so you can spend as much or little as you want. “If you’re going to mix it with orange juice for buck’s fizz, definitely buy something cheaper!” While it’s not usual to have sparkling wine with your Christmas dinner, if you or your guess fancy some fizz with your turkey, just go for it! Alternatively, you might want to enjoy a refreshing white wine at lunchtime, then move to drinking red wine in the evening. Red wine is served warmer and feels like something to be enjoyed when you’re wrapped up warm in front of the fire. But there are no rules that say you have to move from white to red if you don’t want to and there are no rules which tell you exactly when you should make that change. Just do what feels right for you and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks! Whether you’re looking for red, white or sparkling for Christmas, if you want some advice and good value for money, go to a local independent wine retailer. They know all the wines on their shelves and should be able to help you choose something which is just right for you, your family and friends. Don’t be scared to ask for help! Most people will know the names of some popular wines, but won’t know, for example, whether a particular year was a good year. Asking someone who knows wines can be a real help when you are faced with so much choice. In the run-up to Christmas, local wine merchants and vineyards will sometimes hold evenings where you can go along and taste some wines to help you choose. It’s true that the price of a bottle of wine does generally reflect its quality, so when you go to a wine merchant, have a realistic budget in mind and try to stick to it! Unfortunately, wine has got more expensive in recent years, due to poor harvests in Europe, as well as inflation and the rising costs of energy and labour. Because the Christmas period is more than just one day, if you’re interested in trying new wines and finding out more about them, it is a great opportunity to learn more about what you like. Thomas said: “If you buy several different wines and taste them over a few days over Christmas, hopefully you will really like one or two of them. Having a variety over a short period of time means you’re less likely to forget what you like and what you were less keen on. And it’s good fun!” Could there be a better way to choose your wine for Christmas? 

After the harvest…

20 October 2025
After the earliest harvest on record, brought about by the warm summer, the last grapes of 2025 were picked here at Three Choirs Vineyard on 9th October. The harvest is the biggest and most important event every year on the vineyard calendar. And the key thing for us is the quality of fruit, rather than the quantity. Thomas Shaw, managing director of Three Choirs Vineyard, said: “If we have a lot of fruit, we generally don’t get such good quality. This year we’ve got very good quality grapes! “It’s not such a good year for making sparkling wines because the acidity in the grapes was low due to the high temperatures, but 2025 is an excellent year for making still wines.” Now the grapes have all been picked and pressed, they are in tanks in the winery and fermentation is taking place. By the end of November or early December, fermentation should be complete, and the winemakers will start to taste the individual tanks and decide how that wine is going to be used – whether it is going to be a blend or a single variety. Those decisions will be made before Christmas this year, rather than afterwards, as is often the case.
Harvesting grapes at Three Choirs Vineyard

2025: Our earliest harvest ever

29 September 2025
Last month, we told you all about our plans and hopes for harvest at Three Choirs Vineyard. Now, a few weeks on, we can tell you all about how successful it was. Harvest 2025 was the earliest harvest on record for us, after a very dry and consistently warm summer. We started picking two weeks earlier than usual and will finish picking three weeks earlier, at the start of October. Some years, when we’ve had a very late harvest, it has lasted almost until December. But this year has been a fast and furious harvest! We’ve had a bit of rain during September. This can prove problematic during harvest, but we’re pleased to say it was nothing disruptive this year. In fact, the weather has stayed perfect through to the end of September, to keep the grapes in good condition. The positive news is that it wasn’t just an early harvest – it was a good one, with very high quality grapes. The 2025 wines which will start to come out in the middle of next year should reflect that. 

When is the right time to pick the grapes?

28 August 2025
As August draws to an end, the team at Three Choirs Vineyard are gearing up ready for our harvest. But when is the right time to pick the grapes? We don’t have a definite set date for the annual harvest; it all depends on the weather. This year, it looks likely to start a bit early – probably in the first week of September - because of all the good weather we’ve had this summer. That is about 10 days to two weeks earlier than usual. As the climate is changing, the trend is towards picking earlier than we used to. But the harvest still takes the same amount of time. Generally, we would expect the harvest to last for about 10 weeks, but this will depend on what the weather is like and the quantity and quality of grapes on our vines. Here at Three Choirs, we have 14 different varieties of grapes, and they all ripen at slightly different times. The first grape we will pick is Siegerrebe, which is a pinky orange colour when ripe. Siegerrebe makes a white wine, because, as with most grapes, all the colour is in the skin and not the juice inside. Siegerrebe takes 76 days from flowering until the fruit is ready to pick. The timing really is as specific as that! All of the grape varieties have precise timings, although some of them are longer than others. Thomas Shaw, managing director, said: “It’s been a good year, with lots of sunshine. The grapes are fairly small, but that means they should have a nice concentration of flavours and sugars, which is what we need. We don’t need big fat grapes like you get in the supermarket, because they’re full of water.” It hasn’t just been a warm, sunny year, it has been a very dry one too. Will that affect our harvest? Thomas continued: “There was a lot of moisture in the ground early in the year. The roots of our vines go down 12 to 15 foot, so there is still enough moisture down there for them. “Grapes are different from other crops. Some farmers have been struggling this year because their crops have very small roots, and the ground is far too dry for them.” Picking is all done by hand. Fruit is picked and pressed on the same day. Thomas said: “To maximise the quality, we don’t pick when it’s rainy. If it’s raining, we can get a lot of wet fruit into the winery, which dilutes the wine.” So here’s hoping for a dry harvest! Early indications are that 2025 will be a successful year for grapes at Three Choirs. Flowering in late June and early July is a key time for our harvest, and the weather was just what we needed at that time. September and October will be the final decider if 2025 is a good quality year for our wines.
A lady sipping wine from a glass. Wine Tasting at Three Choirs Vineyard

The art of wine tasting: Tips for beginners

7 July 2025
New to wine tasting? It’s for everyone! Learn why there’s no right or wrong and get tips to find wines you’ll love from Three Choirs Vineyard.

Three Choirs hits the headlines

27 June 2025
Three Choirs Vineyards was recently featured in the national media. Not only was it named in the feature 11 of the best vineyard stays in the UK in The Times online, it also had an entire feature devoted to it in the Express online and appeared in the world’s longest running women’s magazine. The People’s Friend is a weekly magazine full of lifestyle, cooking and gardening features, along with short stories and fiction serials. Ahead of English Wine Week (21st to 29th June), we were featured in an article highlighting three UK vineyards – Aldwick Estate in Bristol, Chet Valley Vineyard in Norfolk and, of course, Three Choirs Vineyards, right here in Gloucestershire. The article said there are more than 1,000 vineyards in the UK and that winemaking is one of the fastest growing sectors of agriculture. We’re pleased to say that The People’s Friend said Three Choirs is a ‘top-drawer example’ of an English vineyard, producing around 250,000 bottles a year. The article quotes our managing director, Thomas Shaw, who said: “Three Choirs Vineyard’s focus is the quality of the wines and the visitor experience.” He added: “As the climate changes, more and more varieties can be grown in the UK.” The article shared that most of our wine is sold direct to customers online, to wine merchants or consumed by guests at our brasserie at the vineyard, with a small number of bottles sold to Waitrose. The People’s Friend chose one favourite wine from each of the three producers featured. Its choice from Three Choirs was the Coleridge Hill 2023 – a dry white wine produced from Madeleine Angevine and Phoenix grapes. The magazine said: “With its fresh fruity aromas, especially apple, it’s zesty on the palate thanks to the ripe fruit flavours, and offers a long, crisp finish.”