Does vintage matter?

In her San Francisco Chronicle article Does vintage matter?: It's a debate that has winemakers, critics and consumers battling over the meaning of a year, Karen MacNeil poses some interesting questions:

• Do vintages really matter? if so, how much?
  
• Do they count for some wines more than others?
  
• How are vintages rated? By whom?
  
• How much should a wine drinker rely on those opinions?
  
• What is a so-called great year anyway?

This is timely because, she reports:

California vintners are experiencing the worst case of vintage rejection in recent history...The 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon vintage was trounced as "the black sheep in an otherwise spectacular decade of Cabernet vintages" by James Laube, writing in the Oct. 15, 2001, Wine Spectator. Laube is a major critic, and the impact of that negative assessment has left many wineries stuck with wines -- sometimes extremely expensive wines -- that are proving difficult to sell.

Though Laube displays harsh criticism in his Wine Spectator article, Black Sheep Vintage, he also explains that 1998 is far from a disaster but many winemakers had to deal with a wickedly uneven year. The Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, and other reknowned wine critics have incredible impact and influence on wine sales. Criticizing an entire vintage can be devastating. MacNeil states that many of the top producers like Joseph Phelps, Robert Mondavi, Far Niente, and Staglin have reduced 1998 Cabernet prices up to 35%.
According to MacNeil, limitations exist in judging an entire vintage:

• Vintages are usually assessed when the wine is young, and before it's been bottled. Whether or not such an early assessment is valid is controversial. "It's questionable whether a person can taste through barrels even a year after fermentation and say definitively this is a great or terrible vintage," says Robert Brittan, general manager and winemaker for Stag's Leap Winery in the Napa Valley.

He points out that a barrel sample is not a finished wine. Rating a barrel sample may well be like rating the ingredients instead of the finished dish. A lot can change by the time the plate gets to the table.
• Wine changes, sometimes dramatically, over time. Though some critics reevaluate their first assessment later on, what sticks in wine drinkers' minds is often only the critic's first impressions of a vintage.


• Scoring a vintage tends to paint all wines with same brush. Yet in any given vintage some wines may be vastly more successful (or vastly less) than others.


• Vintages are often written about as if they are black or white, great or dreadful. Most vintages, however, are somewhere in the middle.


• Defining a so-called great vintage is variable. What you consider admirable in a wine may or may not be shared by the critic evaluating that vintage.


• Ironically, according to sommeliers, so-called poor vintages may work better with food.


• Modern viticulture and enology may well have changed the impact of vintages. More than at any other time in history, winemakers say they can make delicious wines even in challenging circumstances.

Even in Robert Parker's printed version of the Wine Advocate has a disclaimer:

This vintage chart should be regarded as a very general overall rating slanted in favor of what the finest producers were capable of producing in a particular viticultural region. Such charts are filled with exceptions to the rule...astonishing good wines from skillful or lucky vinters in years rated mediocre, and thin, diluted, characterless wines from incompetent or greedy producers in great years.

The problem is customers seem to rush to judgement,"...winemakers and critics alike agree that consumers tend to make erroneous generalizations about a vintage."
Customers should keep in mind Kermit Lynch's advice,

"When I'm asked, 'Is it a great vintage?' " says Lynch, "the only proper response is: Great for what? Is it great for aging? Is it great to be drunk in its youth? Great for hot summer days or cold winter nights? Great for oysters? Great for hamburgers? Great for Stilton cheese? Great for your palate or great for mine?"

Lastly, one needs to remember,

A great vintage is not the same thing as a great wine. Says Parker, "There have been great wines in every vintage."