What Does 'Vintage' Mean on a Bottle of Sparkling Wine?

🌸If you've ever picked up a bottle of sparkling wine and noticed a year printed on the label - perhaps 2022 or 2023 - you might have wondered what it actually means. That year is known as the vintage, and it tells an important part of the wine's story.

🌸What Is a Vintage?

A vintage refers to the year in which the grapes were harvested. If a bottle is labelled 2022, it means the grapes used to make that wine were picked during the 2022 growing season. Every vintage reflects the unique weather conditions of that year, from sunshine and rainfall to temperature and harvest timing.

🌸Why Does It Matter?

Wine is an agricultural product, and no two growing seasons are ever exactly the same. A warmer year may produce riper fruit with generous flavours, while a cooler season can create wines with vibrant acidity and remarkable freshness. Rather than seeing these differences as flaws, winemakers celebrate them. Each vintage captures a snapshot of a particular year in the vineyard.

🌸Vintage vs Non-Vintage

Many sparkling wines are non-vintage (NV). These wines are created by blending wines from several different harvests to achieve a consistent house style year after year. A vintage sparkling wine, on the other hand, is made entirely from grapes harvested in one exceptional year. Because of this, vintage wines often express more of the character of a particular season and may only be produced when conditions allow.

🌸Why We Love Vintage Wines

At Dancing Duchess, our current release Sparkling Rosé proudly carries the 2022 vintage. That means every bottle reflects the character of that single harvest, allowing the fruit, freshness and personality of the season to shine through. We believe that's part of the joy of English wine. Every vintage tells a different story, and each bottle becomes a lasting record of one unique year in the vineyard.

🌸A Bottle with a Story

The next time you notice a year on a bottle of sparkling wine, you'll know it isn't simply a date, it's the beginning of the wine's story. From the weather in the vineyard to the moment the grapes were picked, every vintage is unique, making each bottle a celebration of a single harvest and a single moment in time.