Talk-A-Vino

I don’t know about you, but I like to consult Vintage Charts from time to time. While each wine is absolutely individual, and good winemakers manage to keep the consistency in good vintages and in bad vintages, so-called Vintage Charts, generalized ratings of the wines in the specific region and specific year, provide good insight into what to expect from the wines on average. Of course, even if the vintage for the region is rated, for instance, as 90, it doesn’t mean that particular wine from that same vintage cannot be rated 100. A vintage rating allows you to set the expectations as to what to expect from the average wine, and for how long that individual wine might last in your cellar. No, Vintage Charts don’t hold the absolute truth, but I still find them helpful, at least as a reference.

There are many vintage charts available from many different sources. Some are very global, like Wine Spectator’s ones, covering lots of winemaking regions. Some are very specific, like the vintage charts for Rioja. Below you will find a collection of the Vintage Charts from the different publications. It is important to note that Vintage Charts are constantly updated, adding ratings for the new vintages, and sometimes even changing the ratings for the old ones. I will do my best to keep the links current – but I’m sure there will be some gaps in my coverage. Here we go.

Wine Advocate: vintage chart covers lots of regions and vintages starting from 1970, all in the format of one single table. Also available for download as PDF. Very convenient.

Wine Advocate Vintage Chart

Wine Enthusiast: vintage chart covers multiple regions and starts from 1990.

Wine Enthusiast Vintage Chart 2020

There is another, the most current vintage chart from Wine Enthusiast but it requires you to subscribe to the magazine’s email updates.

Decanter: Vintage chart covers a limited number of regions (less than the previous two), and the rating is done using the stars (up to 5 stars).

Decanter Vintage Charts

Rioja: Covers only Rioja wines, starting from 1925

Rioja Vintage Chart

Jancis Robinson: No numerical ratings here, but instead there are vintage descriptions for the different regions for the past 12-15 years.

Jancis Robinson Vintages

Wine Spectator: Wine Spectator Vintage Charts are good, but require the subscription, which sucks. I’m not sure why they want to play a big gorilla here instead of servicing the people. and as of 2016, it seems that many of the vintage charts (not all) are available without a subscription. And they might be the most detailed vintage charts out there.

Wine Spectator Vintage Charts