The year on a wine bottle refers to the year in which the grapes were harvested, ie the year of vintage or the vintage year. Most wines take only a matter of days or weeks to ferment, so in all but the rarest cases, most of which will be slow-fermenting late-harvested and very sweet dessert wines, the year will also relate to the year of fermentation. Many good and excellent wines are made to improve with age, and it can be something of a challenge for people to determine for how long they should keep their wine before drinking it. My book, The Australian Wine Annual, is designed to take the guesswork out of the equation for Australian wine.
