Vintage vs Vintage

A vertical tasting of vintages from Chateau Musar, a producer based in Lebanon.

1998 vs 2000 vs 2011

“2016 is suuuuuch a GREAT vintage & drinking so much better than the 2020s.”

- some guy raving about juice from his wine cellar in 2025.

You can wax poetic about vintages all day, but why is anybody supposed to actually give a damn?

Aside from well-versed wine enthusiasts, collectors & professionals, the concept of what makes a great vintage and why that vintage is important is consistently lost in translation. Maybe it’s because the answer is much simpler than any elitist would like to admit, but also because we have a tendency to overcomplicate all topics pertaining to wine. It was mid-conversation with a client regarding this very topic that made me realize that I myself needed to find a better explanation. Not a simple one per se, rather, an explanation that has a more well-understood parallel to connect audiences to. I already use fashion as a medium to discuss wine or to encourage new conversations around it, so why not use that same methodology here?

*Cue the title card*

Vintage, as it pertains to wine, is in reference to the year that the grapes are harvested & the subsequent wine is crafted. Think of it as being the wine’s birthday that is proudly displayed somewhere on the final wine label. The year on the label is not necessarily the same year that the wine is then released to the public. A good bit of wine is allowed to age in cellars for 6 months or more before ever hitting the market, but that varies from producer to producer & region to region where there may be certain production laws at play.

Grapes undergo a range of experiences during their life cycles on the vine. Growing conditions, weather patterns, etc. can present grapes with a series of opportunities or challenges that will affect the final wine once harvested. For example, too much rain will cause the grapes to retain excess amounts of water, reducing their acidity & making them susceptible to mold or mildew. Sunlight can be both incredibly beneficial in ensuring grapes ripen but too much sun exposure can cause them to overripen/ripen too quickly—a double edged sword. This experience can vary from region to region in any given year. There’s more emphasis placed on it when tasting wines from regions with historically more unpredictable growing seasons (i.e. Europe). This is why wine enthusiasts pay attention to the vintage on a label when tasting. It can give them a reference point for why a wine is structured a certain way or possesses certain characteristics even after learning what the winemaker has done during the winemaking process. The vintage becomes a snapshot of that grape’s life—growing season to harvest to the winemaking stage to aging—captured in the bottle.

But still the question remains: how do we discern what a great vintage is & why that vintage is seen as so important now?

Example of important vintages from different regions, proving that a great vintage is not always universal. Wilson, J. (2024, December 13). The (Many) Vintages of the Century. The New Wine Review.

Great vintages are not necessarily universal for every region given the nature of how things such as weather & even soil can vary dramatically in different parts of the world. A great vintage is marked by having experienced more opportunities than challenges during the growing season that results in high quality fruit at harvest time—the base for any great wine before the midas touch of a winemaker is applied. The resulting wines are normally characterized by being textbook examples of the region they are coming from, possessing solid acidity or tannins, and a propensity for potential long term aging. Aging is a key factor that marks the longevity of importance a vintage will have in the wine world. If a vintage is a snapshot of what was going on in the vineyards or in the winemaking scene in a certain year, and we know that things change year to year, that vintage can never truly be replicated, right? That is the reason why a “great vintage” becomes more sought after decades later & even more important in the minds of certain wine consumers. We see an identical occurrence happen in the world of fashion.

NOTE FROM TCW: Non-vintage wines (usually more commonplace amongst sparkling wines) means that a wine is comprised of juice from multiple years, and in turn, multiple harvests. This is to achieve a house style or wine that consistently tastes the same year to year. That is in stark contrast to vintage wines where we expect there to be variation on some level vintage to vintage.

Stick with me ‘cause this is the part where I tickle the fancy of my fashionistas & well-dressed gents who are obsessed with clothing or fashion trends. Vintage, in this case, references both pieces of clothing & trends from different eras of fashion. These pieces are noted for their innovation or ingenuity of design, limited run available or rarity of a piece, and the use of well-made materials that allow a piece to age well decades down the road….

…You picking up what I’m putting down?

These designs are often looked at as defining the era in which they were crafted and act as a wearable timestamp of the happenings in the fashion world during the time of conception. The looks become even more important in the now to shoppers than it did it did during the time of its release. It’s the reason why your most stylish friends are thrifting Carhartt, seeking to emulate the chic-grunge trend with their Doc Martens, and flared pants of the disco-glam era. While these designs can, technically, be replicated through production and reinterpretation by a new generation of designers, the original pieces that created certain style trends cannot. Those original pieces are often reserved for the runway, collectors or your favorite celebrities to wear at one of Hollywood’s many events paying homage to years gone by. Even if wearing a replica, however, the piece is still seen as “vintage” because it visually harkens back to a past era that has maintained relevance in the present. A benchmark, if you will, is set that the respective designer can’t necessarily create again with the same piece or design, thus making it one of their “great” vintages.

Replicated, but not the same!

Zendaya wearing an ode to the 1975 Bob Mackie dress worn by Cher on multiple occasions.

Whew, well that was a rabbit hole I thoroughly enjoyed digging my way through, ha! The goal with unpacking this parallel or even making it to begin with is so that you pause the next time you hear someone commenting on great vintages. This should provide even the least wine savvy amongst you a fresh way to contextualize the importance of vintage. Remember, we go crazy about the vintages of yesteryear in both wine & fashion because the lightning captured by a specific vintage doesn’t strike twice.

Wine, but make it fashion.