What is your favorite all-time vintage?

Either due to having several great ones of your favorite wine or due to having several great wines all from the same vintage.

1990 is one of my all-time favorites due to the many luscious champagnes I've had from that year. However, my "favorite all time vintage" is always a work in progress.

Jeff

Either due to having several great ones of your favorite wine or due to having several great wines all from the same vintage.

That would have to be the one I'm drinking now!

Mark Lipton

Either due to having several great ones of your favorite wine or due to having several great wines all from the same vintage.

That would have to be the one I'm drinking now!

Mark Lipton

Fair enough.

Jeff

Maybe it would be better if I had asked, what vintage has provided the most enjoyable wines for you?

Or, rather, if you were to compile your Top 50 list of most memorable wines, what year would show up the most times?

Jeff

'47.

Tough question given all the different ways it can be interpreted, but off the top of my head I'm going to say 2001 in the Middle Mosel. Mainly because the vintage character to those wines has been so unique and so enjoyably thrilling (all to my palate and within my experience of course) compared to all the more recent vintages (i.e. within the vintages that I have drunk the most). Just such a 'regal carriage'.

That's not to say those are the best wines I've ever had. But for a vintage character that gets me excited about the genre, 2001 in the Middle Mosel is pretty special.

2005 red Burgundy might be another candidate, although I drank less of those than 2001 Mosel and of course we haven't seen very much of what 2005 red Burgundy can do.

1985 - pretty darn good for Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Vintage Port, Champagne, Italian Reds and Cal. Cabs.

1985 - pretty darn good for Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Vintage Port, Champagne, Italian Reds and Cal. Cabs.

That was my other choice, at least in terms of the handful of champagnes I've had the privilege to taste from that year.

Jeff

From the point of view as a home wine maker, 2010. Not just as a great growing year locally, but there were also more and better varieties available to me than in the past and, while I'm always learning, I've gained a lot of experience and improved my knowledge in recent years. That being said, I have to agree with Jeff wrt 1990 Champagnes, with the addition of 1967 Bordeaux and 1974 Napa.

1982 Bordeaux was the first vintage of any wine that I purchased a great many of probably upwards of around 10 cases. I still probably have a mixed group of 82s in my cellar left, about 20 bottles. Over the years those wines have given me many, many, pleasure filled evenings. Factoring in inflation etc, those wines were dirt cheap compared to what Bordeauxs cost now.

1982 Bordeaux was the first vintage of any wine that I purchased a great many of probably upwards of around 10 cases. I still probably have a mixed group of 82s in my cellar left, about 20 bottles. Over the years those wines have given me many, many, pleasure filled evenings. Factoring in inflation etc, those wines were dirt cheap compared to what Bordeauxs cost now.

You it's not the '91 vintage in Austria, Lou?

Mark Lipton

'47.

Ditto.
Best, Jim

1982 Bordeaux was the first vintage of any wine that I purchased a great many of probably upwards of around 10 cases. I still probably have a mixed group of 82s in my cellar left, about 20 bottles. Over the years those wines have given me many, many, pleasure filled evenings. Factoring in inflation etc, those wines were dirt cheap compared to what Bordeauxs cost now.

You it's not the '91 vintage in Austria, Lou?

Mark Lipton

Not quite. The first Austrians were out of the 97 vintage and SF Joe brought them to an offline in San Francisco when he actually worked and lived at the time. In fact the long time running joke was that I placed many bottles of Austrian wines in the wine store I'm involved in and I ended up buying all of them out of the bargain barrel where they were languishing quietly. I did not volunteer for this purchase but my partners insisted considering they were dubious from the beginning. I did drink them all and consider myself a martyr to this day.

Well, it depends on where, doesn't it?
My favorite is '98 in the Dry Creek and Russian River valleys. I saw a lot of structure and balance underlying the hard tannins and rather acid and reticent fruit on release.
A decade later, more or less, I considered my first audacious bet against the pundits to be successful! True, the volume production wines were pedestrian if not stationary. On the other hand, the wines that Dave Coffaro and Rod Berglund and a few others made just kept getting better after 5 to 10 years.
So there!!

John

Not quite. The first Austrians were out of the 97 vintage and SF Joe brought them to an offline in San Francisco when he actually worked and lived at the time. In fact the long time running joke was that I placed many bottles of Austrian wines in the wine store I'm involved in and I ended up buying all of them out of the bargain barrel where they were languishing quietly. I did not volunteer for this purchase but my partners insisted considering they were dubious from the beginning. I did drink them all and consider myself a martyr to this day.

Ah, yes. I remembered the story but mis-remembered the year, despite having drunk one of your stash (and an excellent bottle it was) at Rahsaan's goodbye dinner.

Mark Lipton

2001 for German rieslings. Fabulous.

1953 for supremely elegant Bordeaux. I cut my teeth on them. And IMO the German Rieslings were even finer than the much praised 59s.