The vintage chart and harvest reports provided by the wine scholar guild gives you the ranking for every french wine region and vintage from 2000 to today.
What is the best non vintage champagne.
The champagne houses and growers provide a continuous house style through the blending of various vintages to create the yearly non vintage champagne.
In contrast most champagne is non vintage.
This means that the final product is a blend of wines produced in different years a little of the 2008 a little of the 2006 and.
Non vintage wines are typically blended with wines made from grapes of multiple years to create a consistent flavor profile from year to year and these wines are mostly associated with champagne and fortified wines like port or sherry although vintners can also.
And like fine wine and whisky age is also a factor.
Whereas a good quality year will produce a typically fuller deeper champagne making it a vintage year.
And why is vintage champagne so much more expensive.
With a higher proportion of chardonnay than your typical non vintage champagne this bottle provides a fresh crisp palate of citrus and mineral notes that would be the perfect compliment to fresh.
Vintages are made only three or four times a decade and make up less than 5 percent of total champagne production.
While non vintages need at least 15 months to mature a vintage requires a minimum.
Non vintage champagne may not be the most exciting champagne category but it is the backbone of this region.
The auction house s non vintage blanc de blancs offers a lean zesty fruit forward introduction to the champagne category and works perfectly as an aperitif.
Vintage champagne must be made 100 from the year indicated on the label.
Andrew jefford award winning wine journalist for decanter magazine and author of twelve books on wine including the new france has compiled information and written the vintage charts.
In the context of wine making non vintage refers to wines that are produced with grapes or wines from different harvest years.
Because there s less of it.
Non vintage champagne accounts for nearly 80 of production and it s these champagnes that line the shelves of wine merchants and supermarkets.
Whereas in non vintage the winemaker can blend for example cool vintages with warm to find a harmonious balance in a vintage champagne you have only one year to play with.