What Is Non Vintage Champagne

The champagne houses and growers provide a continuous house style through the blending of various vintages to create the yearly non vintage champagne.

What is non vintage champagne.

Whereas a good quality year will produce a typically fuller deeper champagne making it a vintage year. A wine that is labeled as vintage refers to a wine produced with varietals of a particular harvest year thus a non vintage wines is the opposite. By comparison non vintage champagne has a 15 month minimum. Non vintage champagne is simply made from grapes from a variety of vintages or growth years.

Three years is actually standard and some houses including laurent perrier age their non vintage champagne for even longer. Vintage champagne must be made 100 from the year indicated on the label. Non vintage or nv champagnes are made by blending some of these reserve wines with wines from the most recent harvest enabling subtle fine tuning to achieve a house style that reflects the philosophy of the producer. This doesn t mean that non vintage champagne is only aged for 15 months.

Speaking to insider alongside francoise peretti founder of peretti communications and director of the champagne bureau uk le mailloux said what you probably have sitting on your shelf is a non vintage champagne which is a blend of several different harvests. Whereas in non vintage the winemaker can blend for example cool vintages with warm to find a harmonious balance in a vintage champagne you have only one year to play with. Non vintage champagne on the other hand is a blend from harvests from different years. Vintage doesn t actually mean that the champagne is old just that it s made from grapes from one single year.

Vintners produce non vintage wines by combining wines made from multiple vintages to create a consistent flavor profile so wine drinkers can enjoy the same flavor in their favorite wines from.