Vintage

Vintage and non-vintage

A vintage wine is made from grapes harvested in a single year. A non-vintage wine is a blend of wines from two or more years, used to maintain a consistent house style. Champagne houses famously rely on non-vintage blends for most of their production, because the consistency is the brand. The vintage cuvée, made only in the best years, is the prestige bottling.

English producers use the same logic. The non-vintage Brut is the everyday wine, blended across multiple years for consistency. The vintage Brut, Blanc de Blancs or prestige cuvée is made only in the best years, often with extended lees ageing. The vintage year is printed on the front label, along with the disgorgement date and the dosage category.

Recent English vintages

The standout English vintages of the last decade include 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2025, all of which combined warm, dry summers with cool nights and a long, dry harvest. These vintages produced wines of high ripeness, balanced acidity and clean fruit, and they are the ones that established English sparkling on the global stage.

The challenging vintages were 2011, 2012 and 2021, all of which had cool, wet summers and a difficult harvest. The wines from these years are lighter and more delicate, often with lower alcohol and higher acidity. Some producers chose not to make a vintage wine in these years, releasing only non-vintage blends.

Reading a vintage on a label

A typical English vintage label will show the year prominently, the producer, the cuvée name, the PDO designation, and the dryness descriptor. The back label will show the disgorgement date, the lees ageing time, the dosage, and the technical details. The vintage year is the most important piece of information, because it tells the drinker what to expect.

For trading up, the rule of thumb is that older vintages of méthode traditionnelle tend to drink better than younger ones, because the lees ageing and the bottle ageing have allowed the wine to integrate. A 2018 English sparkling with 5 years of bottle age will usually be more integrated and more complex than a 2023 from the same producer, even if the younger wine has more immediate fruit.

Cellaring English wine

English sparkling wines are designed to age. The méthode traditionnelle process and the cool-climate acidity give them a long ageing curve, and a well-stored bottle can drink beautifully for a decade or more after disgorgement. The best cellaring conditions are a constant 12 to 14 degrees Celsius, moderate humidity, no vibration and no direct light.

For consumers, the practical advice is to buy vintage English sparkling and lay it down for 3 to 5 years before drinking. The investment in patience is well rewarded, and the wines develop the brioche, baked apple and toasted nut character that is the signature of mature méthode traditionnelle.