Year

Jahrgang
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Significant influence on the quality of a wine, in addition to soil type , grape grower and the Art of Climate . Wines also reflect some of the very wide climatic peculiarities of the year contrary. One speaks in this context of "typical year of birth", so for example a wine "by year of typical botrytis "or due to heat waves a" roasted "extension. In warmer growing areas are usually the fluctuations are not so strong, so that the deviations lower. In cooler growing regions, the differences may be significant, this is the case in the Italian regions Piedmont and Tuscany , the Austrian wine region Wachau or The wine region Styria , the German wine-growing region Moselle and the French regions of Burgundy , Bordeaux , Alsace and Loire .

From the Bordeaux region is the statement that the Châteaux no good wine, but only good vintages (some even say to that: just good bottles) produce. Climate and weather conditions are not uncommon for very large areas and even countries within a year similar (although of course the air does not follow national borders), but the quality can vary from area to area, from place to place, and even by location turn out to be very different position within the year. One can therefore only very general speak of a certain vintage quality and this can only tend to be relatively rough guide and do not understand flat rate for all producers.

In a "low born" the wines usually have less total extract and alcohol content . In general, those wines mature faster and reach their climax sooner. Also has great influence with growing the way. With conventional wines in barrels usually have a longer than those in the steel tank (see also Aging and oak ). Specific volumes were mentioned in the ancient world to the oldest wines "Opimianer" from 121 BC. There were usually only the very poor documentation (due to weather, wars, pests or other disasters) and the very good years. In addition, it was customary, to give just a barrel in the new year.

The best wines are very special years as a poetic Century wine or even referred to millennium wine. An important also from a historical point of view was born as the legendary 1811er . The description of the following years and wines comes in part from the documentary "Chronicle of vintage wine in the last 2000 years" by Peter H. Jordan. This is also a short history of viticulture. The comments in the individual years are often referred to specific vineyards, and of course can not in principle be valid for all countries and all wines. Unless otherwise indicated, they refer mainly to Germany and Austria:

121 BC - the first year of documented wine history, from this year comes the famous Falernian "Opimianer"

306, 312, 411, 545, 585, 604 - crop failure

765 - blessed vintage year, it was a thanksgiving service of King Pippin III. (714-768) - father of Charlemagne

900-1300 - long period of a medieval warm period that followed a cold period again (see also under Little Ice Age )

987 - very hot and dry year, complete crop failure

1150 - years of crisis in the Mosel and Rhine, probably led by over-production due to the enormous expansion of vineyards, with a climate warm phase to a wave of emigration from growers mainly in the Carpathian region

1185 - wonderful wine in large quantities, beginning first reading August

1293, 1295, 1297 - excellent wine in abundance

1343 - a wine made ​​of lime rock was still in the 17-Palatinate Century castle in Heidelberg served

1346 - disaster year, extreme frost in mid-September

1400 - the beginning of the first of a long period of climate deterioration

1407 - Severe winter frosts, frozen Rhine, destroyed many vineyards

1437 - Severe frosts, extreme winter destroyed the vineyards on the Vistula

1443 - extremely sour and unpalatable wine, so it was for mortar in the construction of the Vienna Stephansdom used, see also under Mature biter

1484 - very good year with huge amounts, was more than a million liters of old wine poured into the Lake of Constance, to make room in the barrels

1485 to 1488 - four-year period of bad harvests and poor, acidic wines

1525 - a good vintage, the wine has been shown to have served in 1730 in the Strasbourg hospital basement

1526 - in the Burgenland town of Donnerskirchen (Lake Neusiedl-hill country, Austria) was a Trockenbeerenauslese pressed, which was still edible after 326 years, and as Luther wine fame

1529 - Born with less acidic wines - see also Turkish wine

1530 - Born in poor, very sour grapes, wine undrinkable almost

1540 - a thousand-year, it was so hot that dried up the Rhine, there were some areas of Germany's two Vintage - Not as often read two vegetation periods (first in early August and the second later with the rest of the grapes), a Würzburg Stone (single location, Germany) was consumed 421 years later and was edible

1606 - very good year, hot summers, great Tokay

1628 - as bad as the last 100 years, not even the vinegar was so spoiled

1632 - a very bad year, unusual heat and drought of mid-July to mid September, the destruction of many vineyards through the Thirty Years War (1618-1648)

1645 - Bad Year, the beginning of the climate phenomenon Little Ice Age That continued with a break around 1715 to 1850

1659 - the first wine pioneer Jan van Riebeeck January (1619-1677) produced vintage in South Africa with 15 liters of muscatel wine

1679 - one of Madeira this cohort with intact original cork was founded in 1999 by Michael Michael Broadbent tasted and found to be very good

1703 - a very bad year, the cooper, Hans Jacob Erni was executed because he bad the wines from 1701 and 1703 "improved" and died a few people

1709 - French extreme frost in the area Pays Nantais in the Loire, which froze many vines (see Muscadet )

1726 - the most exquisite wines in abundance, the vintages 1706, 1719, 1726 and 1748 were Johann Wolfgang Goethe Mother in barrels "from her self maintained and cared for" and served in cut bottles

1727 - with regard to quantity and quality of a great vintage in Germany, the so-called "Rüdesheimer Apostelwein "(Rheingau) from this year stored in the" Ratskeller "

1735 - a premium wine of this vintage from the winery Schloss Schönborn was auctioned in 1987 for around € 27,000

1748 - a Schloss Johannisberg was Johann Wolfgang Goethe on his 66th Birthday and served with a copy of this wine was in 1985 at the age of 237 years, edible, Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) receives a gift of 1748 in Cologne, the Rhine wine

1766 - excellent vintage, has been shown to continue drinking in 1780

1775 - very good year with a magnificent wine, late harvest botrytis in the first Schloss Johannisberg with the famous story of Spätlesereiter

1776 - very good year, wines from the years 1748, 1775 and 1776 were offered in 1830 in Hochheim as a "fine old vintages"

1786 and 1787 - "be used only for servants, maids and day laborers" bad wine,

1794 - allegedly first Icewine in Germany (Franconia)

1804 - exceptionally good, mature vintage

1811 - as a Comet wine Napoleon and wine Century wine designated legendary vintage in many growing areas of Europe, mention should be made ​​Château d'Yquem and Goethe's famous " 1811er "- A Riesling from Bassermann-Jordan

1816 and 1817 - gross error of years - the grapes are frozen prior to the maturity in 1816 went down in history as the "year without a summer" a

1821 - wrong year, it has been harvested almost nothing

1830 - Frost year (frost period lasted from 1799 to 1830), this also increases the production of hard frost has Riesling forced, first documentary occupied Icewine in Germany from the 1829 harvest near Bingen (Rheinhessen)

1846 - documentary occupied Eiswein in Germany

1857 - very good year, unusually hot summer in the journal "crash" the wines as "summer pleasures-drink Bronnen as mild, wild tons potion" characterizes, for the cart-load (about 1,000 liters) Scharzhofberg (Mosel) were paid to 13,000 dollars for the best Moselle wines to 15,000 dollars

1858 - very good year (see also Comet wine ), Documentary occupied Icewine on Schloss Johannisberg in Germany

1861 - very good year (see also Comet wine )

1864, 1865, 1870 - three exceptionally good years, was a period when so-called "golden era Bordeaux" in history, many Century wine

1870 - Born on average, the average yield for the years 1870-1879 in Germany amounted to 17 hectoliters per hectare

1877-1883 - consistently bad vintages with mostly cold, wet summers

1880 - documentary occupied Icewine in Germany

1886 - first time in many years a very good year for small amounts of crop

1888 - miserable year, the vintage describes the poem "The '88 wine"

1890 - documentary occupied Icewine in Germany

1893 - great year with many Century wine , A competitor to 1811, outstanding noble rot, the best load of Scharzhofberg (Mosel) cost 10,500 marks (ie 10.50 marks per liter), German wines of this vintage were awarded at the World Expo as the best wines of the world

1900 - very good and sought after vintage, a so-called "storybook summer"

1911 - very good year (see also Comet wine ), Red-hot summer ( Drought ), A Riesling Auslese from the Rheingau region was sampled in 1996

1921 - a long and very hot summer, some fruit trees in bloom a second time, superior wines in Germany (here the term Widow Wine used) and France-Bordeaux

1926 - very good year, especially France (Bordeaux)

1928 - very good year, especially France (Bordeaux)

1929 - very good year in many parts of Europe, hot, long summer, especially many of the top wines from the Bordeaux region (a "glorious years")

1937 - some Century wine Burgundy in France and also in Germany and in Germany with outstanding, extremely long-lived Rieslings of the Rhine and Moselle, outstanding sweet wines (late harvest, reading, Trockenbeerenauslese - see also under Steinberg ), At the baptism of wine in New Town (Palatinate), the wine was called "Bomber" (two years later they were), but in Burgundy it was top quality Pinot Noir, for example, from the winery Domaine de la Romanee-Conti

1945 - very good year, many exceptional wines - the "year of peace" wines, see examples in Century wine

1947 - very good year, especially France (Bordeaux), also in Austria

1949 - very good year, particularly in France (Bordeaux, Burgundy), also partly in Austria and Germany

1951 - a very bad year by heavy rains in May and early summer, extremely bad in Bordeaux (Michael Michael Broadbent in "New Great Vintage Wine Book": Terrible, the worst post-war vintage and one of the desaströsesten at all ")

1953 - very good year, particularly in France (Bordeaux) and in Germany for sweet wines

1956 - a bad year in many countries, extreme temperatures down to minus 30 degrees Celsius and frost in many European countries (eg France, Germany, Austria), which also led to the destruction of many vineyards

1959 - Born in the century, many exceptional wines in Germany and France

1961 - Born in a world with large long-lived wines, especially Bordeaux, but also in Spain, Italy and overseas (Australia, California)

1966 - Born in a century-especially France-Burgundy and Germany

1968 - large harvests of moderate quality in Austria, born poor with low levels in Germany must

1970 - A record harvest in Austria with acid-stressed wines, great ice-Year in Germany

1976 - long heat wave and Drought in Europe, partly Century wine In Germany with excellent excellent vintage Botrytisweinen (the wines were described as "sun-eater" or "bikini wines" means - because the harvest by "leichtbekleidetem" staff was)

1976-1984 - In Austria, in 1985 discovered the "wine scandal" by some producers were crying Diethylene glycol added to the first vintage was affected in 1976, the volumes increased from 1980 to 1984

1979 - Born in Germany on average, long-lived wines in Austria - special qualities in Burgenland and Styria

1982 very good year, especially France (a "miracle year" in Bordeaux), Germany's largest wine harvest all time record harvest in Austria

1983 - famous in Germany's second largest harvest ever, was the Grange's 1983 from the Australian winery Penfolds

1984 - Cold weather in the spring break-ins, poor born in Germany and Austria, with very few good wines

1985 - very good year, especially France (Bordeaux, Rhone), some Century wine In Austria severe frost damage, had a negative impact on the 1986

1986 - The Chernobyl-year, very good year, especially France (Bordeaux) and wines from the appellations Montrachet in Burgundy

1987 - Late spring frost damage, late flowering, despite good year

1988 - large harvests with different qualities

1989 - very good year, especially in France (Bordeaux) with alcohol and tannins (especially Merlot) wines

1990 - an outstanding year, applies to many wines in Europe and overseas

Only after it was over, wine Bottles fill, the distinction began in vintages. From about the year 1800 there are records of monasteries through accurate information about every year and a good, complete overview. Today is attempted, the quality of a year divided by countries, regions and territories with a class system display. This is designed only for tasting, Wine Review , or purchasing of wines are given. Vintage tables are of course not static and are not for all eternity, but must be correctly updated annually to support the development of the wines by the Aging and in bottles to be taken into account. The Company International Wine and Food Society published in 1935 one of the first year of tables at all. Since then, an updated table is published annually. The Wine Review is responsible for a specially appointed committee, in which three Masters of Wine are represented. Such information is accessible exclusively IMF members.

On a vintage chart was omitted in the present book, because it can naturally be only a very rough guide. Even within a small area, the wines are very rarely uniformly good or bad. A good example is the year 1964, where a generalization of the quality of all the wines of a country (in this case, Bordeaux-France) would be wrong. This year there were heavy rains during the main harvest time. Those wineries that are still harvested from the rain, achieved excellent results, such as Chateau Latour . Many others, such as Château Beychevelle , Château Calon-Ségur , Château Lafite-Rothschild and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild , harvested (too) late, and produced rather thin, weak body wines whose high point was exceeded already after a few years.

If the information contained in the present work wineries, wines and wine regions rarely contain information on outstanding vintages. The few exceptions are particularly well-known producers and a few areas. This list may of course make no claim to completeness: Barbaresco , Bardolino , Barolo , Brunello di Montalcino , Chateau Haut-Brion , Château Lafite-Rothschild , Château Latour , Château Le Pin , Chateau Mouton-Rothschild , Chateauneuf-du-Pape , Château Palmer , Château Pétrus , Château d'Yquem , Chianti Classico , Opus One , Penfolds and Sassicaia . Vintages from this producer are among the best and most expensive wines in the world . See also Aging , in bottles and Century wine .