Wine is the subject. Vintage is the dimension of time.
Vintages
Wine through time: growing seasons, harvest conditions, maturity and retrospectives. A vintage is never reduced to a score here.
After mildew devastated 2024, Burgundy's 2025 growing season swung from June heatwaves to harvest rain. Regional volumes rebounded 45 percent on 2024, but at domaine level the vintage was decided parcel by parcel and week by week.
The earliest harvest on record, five summer heatwaves and sugars so high that Champagne's regulators granted an unprecedented derogation allowing wines to reach 15 percent alcohol. Inside the vintage the Comite Champagne compares to 1921, 1947 and 1959.
Chandon called its earliest first pick in 53 years on July 24, and picking across California is running earlier than at any time in a generation. After 2025's slow cool season, Napa has flipped to the fastest start anyone can remember.
Mildew, coulure and a July hailstorm cut yields by a quarter and pushed Grenache to the margins. Syrah and Mourvedre stepped forward, and the result is a vintage of freshness, definition and welcome restraint.
The 2025 Beaujolais harvest ran at about half its usual volume after a summer of punishing heat. Yet in Tokyo and New York, the region's spokesmen reached for the same comparison: 2015, the modern benchmark for cru Gamay.
The Wine Institute's first statewide preview reports picking several weeks ahead of schedule, lighter crops, and concentrated, aromatic fruit from Mendocino to Paso Robles. A fuller harvest report follows this fall.
