The True Meaning of a Vintage Chart

“You must always understand what a vintage chart does not do,” Mademoiselle Vivette said.“It does not simply grade wines—giving some of them in some years a xoo percent best and, in other years, a zero worst, with every grade in between.” Mademoiselle Vivette’s point is especially true in the United States, where, because of the extra aging caused by the rigors of the transatlantic voyage, it is absolutely essential to interpret intelligently the vintage charts. If, for example, a certain wine of a particular year is given the highest possible rating (perhaps ten points, or twenty, or whatever the scale of the chart happens to be), this does not mean that that particular wine was“great” from the moment when the grapes were pressed. No. The chart is saying that, potentially, if that wine is given the chance to develop to its fullest potential, it will become“great.” But if you drink it, say, when it is only a couple of years old, you are not drinking it at its full potential, and at that point it is almost certainly not as good as another wine of a much lower rating but more fully developed and in a more ready state to be consumed. It was Baron Philippe de Rothschild, I believe, who once said that anyone who drank his marvelous Château Mouton wines before they had reached their full potential was guilty of committing infanticide.