Wines may be classified by the year in which the grapes are harvested, known as ‘vintage’. Vintage wines are made from grapes of a single year’s harvest and are accordingly dated. Some wines can improve in flavor as they age and wine enthusiasts often save such wines for future consumption.

For some types of wines, the best quality of grapes and the most care in winemaking are employed on vintage wines and they are therefore more expensive than vintage wines. However climatic conditions have a dramatic impact on the character of a wine to the extent that different vintages from the same vineyard can vary dramatically in flavor and quality. Thus vintage wines are produced to be individually characteristic of the vintage.

Non-vintage wines are blended from a number of vintages for consistency, and this allows winemakers to keep a reliable image in the market and also maintain sales in bad vintage years. Some vintage wines are only made in better-than-average years.