How to Buy a Vintage Champagne

Vintage does not always mean old. A declared vintage for champagne means that it was a great production year for the vineyard. Many excellent vintage champagnes exist, but the trick is knowing the good years from the bad.

Instructions

1. Recognize non-vintage champagne. Non-vintage champagne is made from several different harvest years and cannot be sold until the blend is at least 15 months old. No vintage date is printed on the label. Often, a simple NV is printed on the label to indicate non-vintage champagne.

2. Familiarize yourself with vintage champagne. Vintage champagne is made from a single harvest year and cannot be sold until it is at least 39 months old. Champagne vintages are declared only for outstanding harvest years.

3. Discover Prestige Cuvees. Vintage champagnes that are labeled Prestige Cuvees are specially crafted, hand selected champagnes. This type of champagne is matured for five to seven years before being sold. The most popular Prestige Cuvee is Möet and Chandon Dom Perignon.

4. Obtain a list of the great recent vintage years. They are: 1971, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1981,1982, 1985, 1988 1989, 1990, 1995 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2004.

5. Know when vintage champagne has passed its prime. Generally, any vintage champagne bottled before 1971 has passed its prime or optimum drinking age.

Tips & Warnings

• Buy and hold any vintage champagne sold after 1995 in order to allow it to reach its prime.

• Prestige Cuvee vintage champagne costs twice as much as regular vintage champagne and three times as much as a non-vintage.

Resources

• Learn more about wines in general at Wineintro.
• Visit Champagnemagic.