Non-Vintage & Vintage Cuvées: Nuts and Smoke
The non-vintage wine is the entry-level cuvée for most houses producing a range of wines; the blend can vary wildly as can the style of wine, ...
Non-Vintage Champagne: A Champagne containing the juice for grapes of different years.
Nose: A term used by wine enthusiasts to describe the smell of a wine.
Non-Vintage: Blended from more than one vintage. This allows the vintner to keep a house style from year to year. Many Champagnes and sparkling wines are nonvintage. Also, Sherry and the nonvintage Ports, the tawnies and the rubies.
NV (or) non-vintage: A wine that is made without a majority of grapes coming from a single year.
Oaky: A term used to describe woody aromas and flavors; butter, popcorn and toast notes are found in "oaky" wines.
Non-vintage wine is made from the juice of grapes harvested from several years; there's no year noted on the label of such wine.
Non-vintage wines can be blended from more than one vintage for consistency, a process which allows wine makers to keep a reliable market image and maintain sales even in bad years.
non-vintage...
Blended from more than one vintage, allowing the vintner to maintain a house style regardless of the year of production - though could be vintage-specific and simply not certified or labeled as such.
What about "Non-vintage" Wines?
Most sparkling wines and fortified wines are classified as "non-vintage" wines, because they are typically a blend of various vintages.
Non-vintage
The majority of sparkling wine produced is 'non-vintage' (also known as 'mixed vintage'), a blend of wines from several years. This means that no declared year will be displayed on the bottle label.
The grapes for vintage Champagne that show a year on the label were harvested from one year only, while non-vintage Champagne are grapes and wines blended from many years.
As a result, most non-vintage-dated "Malmsey" was made from the widely grown Tinta Negra Mole or even from fox grape varieties.
Following are some of my favorite "non-vintage" or "NV" bottlings, with choices for every budget. Why non-vintage? For a few reasons, with the most prominent being consistency.
What is the difference between vintage and non-vintage Champagne?
The major difference is that vintage champagne is made from the grapes of only one year's harvest, whereas non-vintage champagne is a blend of many different years' wines.
Most sparking wine is non-vintage, which allows the winemaker to blend older wine with the new, to achieve a consistent flavor style. These non-vintaged wines are ready to consume immediately and should be within one or two years.
Fortified and sparkling wines, including Champagne, tend to be non-vintage, however. This is because they are frequently created from a blend of different vintages, with the aim of creating a consistent 'house style'.
They produce seven Champagnes with the vintage and non-vintage Bruts with plenty of fruit, yeasty notes, and crisp bites of acidity. There is also a traditional Blanc de Noirs made from Pinot Noir with a hint of salmon color.
The year in which the grapes for a given wine were harvested. Most wines carry a vintage date, though not all. Non-vintage sparkling wines and Champagnes, for example, are blends of grapes from different harvests.
VIOGNIER ...
Wines that are a blend of years are considered non-vintage wines (or N.V.). Until modern winemaking allowed fine wine to age consistently, dates were not associated with wines, and the "freshest" wine was the wine that was most in demand.
The 'vintage' simply refers to the year the grapes were grown. However, when referring to Champagne, a vintage wine is one that is made from grapes all grown in the year declared on the label, whereas a non-vintage wine is a blend of wines from ...
non-vintageRefers to those Champagnes whose cuvée contains wine from a previous vintage. noseThe generic term for the smell of a wine. nouveauLiterally, "new". Wines made to be drunk quite young, within a few months of harvest.
 See also: Wine, Grape, Vintage, Region, Champagne
  
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