Wine Pills

Vintage: the name of the wine sounds good, but does the vintage really make a difference?

The indication that a sparkling wine comes from a single vintage declared on the label is often misunderstood as a shortcut to 'better'. But this is by no means the case, let's see why.

by Cristiana Lauro

18 April 2026

Bollicine, ecco perché millesimato non vuol dire più buono

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

In wine, there are words that work like passwords: you pronounce them - or simply read them on the label - and the conversation takes a little leap. Millesimato is one of them. It sounds good, it sounds serious, it sounds right. It evokes selection, rigour, something that deserves attention. But then it is worth stopping for a moment and asking: what does it really mean?

The answer is much less solemn than the sound suggests. "Millesimato" simply indicates that that sparkling wine comes from a single vintage declared on the label. That is all. No implied ranking, no automatic award, no guarantee of superiority.

Yet, in the common imagination, the term continues to function as a shortcut for saying 'better'. It is an elegant misunderstanding, but still a misunderstanding. In the world of Classical Method sparkling wines - hence Champagne and its surroundings - the question becomes even more interesting. Because the real test, the one that really tells the style of a maison, is often the non-vintage. It is there that the most complex game is played: in the blending of different vintages, in the reserve wines, in the ability to build a constant balance despite vintages that change character every year.

The non-vintage is continuity. It is identity. It is the promise - kept - that that bottle will be as recognisable today as it will be tomorrow. The vintage, on the other hand, is something else. It is a declaration. An almost narrative gesture: this vintage deserves to stand on its own. Without aids, without corrections, without a net. The result is a more exposed wine.More readable, if you like. But also more fragile. Because if the vintage is extraordinary, the vintage can become memorable. If it is 'only' good, it risks being less harmonious than a great, intelligently constructed non-vintage.

Yet the myth endures, fuelled also by certain icons: the grand cuvées de prestige - Dom Pérignon, Cristal - are always vintage. And this, inevitably, weighs on perception. But all it takes is a change of perspective to bring things back into balance: Krug Grande Cuvée or Grand Siècle demonstrate, with remarkable consistency, that excellence can also (and perhaps above all) be born from the art of blending.

Then there is the Prosecco case that deserves a separate parenthesis, with just the right amount of irony. Because Prosecco is, by its very nature, a vintage wine that is made from grapes of the last harvest. The term 'vintage', therefore, adds little on a technical level and much on a communicative one. It is a word that reassures, suggests precision and makes everything seem more polished. Even when, in the glass, little or nothing changes. A bit like proudly specifying that the bread is fresh. Excellent of course, but the opposite would be difficult to explain.

In the end, the point is simple: wine - and sparkling wine in particular - cannot be reduced to one word. 'Millesimato' is not a sentence, but an indication. It says where the wine comes from, not how much it is worth. The real difference lies elsewhere: in the hand of the producer, in the ability to interpret a vintage or, conversely, to tame it through blending. In a word, in the vision.

Perhaps then it is worth doing a little double-take, i.e. one step back from the fascination with words that make a scene and one step forward towards a more concrete idea of quality.

Because, in the end,the best bubbles are not the ones that declare themselves special, but the ones that become so exactly at the moment we taste them.