how do you determine a 'good year' on wine??

Question

and how do the sweet/dry kinds get differentiated? is it determined by the kind of grapes?
information please

Answer 1

A good year is one that is optimal for the grape (degree days, rainfall etc all play a role). But even if the year was favorable for the grapes, the winemaker will ultimately effect the outcome of the wine. They can make great wines in medicore years too. I would suggest concentrating on bad years to avoid wines rather than good years to look for good wines. It's hard to make a good wine with a bad grape.

There are many lists that come out every so often in periodicals such as Wine Spectator that tell you which years were good, average or bad. But I would only use that information as a small percentage of your information in looking for wines. There is much, much more to a good wine than that.

Second question: Sweet and dry wines are determined based on their sugar content. A lot of the grape's sugar is converted into alcohol during fermentation. When that process is stopped, there is some residual sugar left over. A dry wine may have .1 to .2 percent residual sugar, a semi-sweet 1 to 3 percent, and some dessert wines have as much as 30%.

The kind of grape effects the sweetness/dryness insofar as the way that type of varietal is usually made in a particular region. You can be fairly sure that your Pinot Grigio or Cabernet Sauvignon are going to be on the dryer side. But that is not so with all grapes. In those cases you can use the region to determine how it may be. If I heard a wine made from Sauvignon Blanc grape in California, I would assume it is going to be dry. If it's from the Bordeaux region of France, it's going to be sweet. A Pinot Gris from Oregon may have more residual sugar than a Pinot Grigio from Italy.

Most vineyards have data sheets on their wines that give you lots of interesting and useful information on their wines, including the percentage of residual sugar (see this link for an example: http://www.abundancevineyards.com/pdf/AB-04-PS.pdf )

I hope this answers your questions. Cheers!

Baron Von Lipwig

Answer 2

A "good year" for wine is determined by the climate and the qualities of the grape. If the weather was inappropriate for growing grapes and the ground was damaged in any way, then the wine resulting from the harvest would be sub-standard.
Sweet and dry are differentiated by sugar content. Dry has less sugar than dessert wines.
A good wine taster would be able to taste a wine and tell you what region the grape was grown and what year by subtleties in flavour. When a "nose" describes wine as having "notes of leather" or berries, these words are taken literally and often are an astute description of the ground in which the grapes were grown.
Hope this helps. Wine is fun and it is a science and can be broken down like machine mechanics into a never ending puzzle.

Answer 3

A good year in wine is determined by the grapes that are put into the wine and what conditions thgey were grown in. The best wines grow in marginal soils in marginal climates. In other words it is all about hang time( the time the grapes spend on the vine) ripening, maturing, and picking up flavors from the soil. The longer the grapes take to mature the more flavor that will result. Of course there are many factors that stand in the way of the grapes getting to maturity:Rain too much or too little, Temperature spikes or frosts, or any other problem with the weather. To have a great year in wine there have to be perfect growing conditions in the vinyards. And yes the type of grape is a factor because the conditions for one type of grape might not be ideal for another type. The wine guides will tell you what years are considered good years.
Sweet wines have more risidual sugar than dry wines. You can make both sweet and dry wines from the same types of grapes. Alsacian Rieslings are very dry compared to a German Auslese Reisling.

Answer 4

A good year is when the soil, the weather, and the winemaker get everything just right. Note that a particular grape in a particular vineyard may do well, and the vineyard across the valley may suck the same year.
Different grapes do have different sugar levels, but that's only a small component of whether the wine winds up sweet. Keep in mind that the thing that makes wine, well, wine is the fermentation of some of the sugar in the grape juice into alcohol. The vintner controls how much, and aims for a balance of a multitude of variables, including sugar and alcohol content, to make a pleasing combination.

Answer 5

Some wines improve with age. In particular those which have tannin from the grape stems, or oak from a barrel as an ingredient.

A good year for any wine, is one in which the grape produces a high level of sugar content. You would determine this by examining weather records, or by examining the records for the wine region.

Another way of examining records, would be to see how much the EU wine lake has increased or decreased by. One could imagine a good year might be one in which the EU wine lake increased. However, you may find that in fact a good year is when the price goes up due to reduced supply.

Sweet/dry wines are measured by their specific gravity. In other words how much sugar is left in solution after fermentation is complete. There are some websites which are more specific on this issue (see below).

Answer 6

unfortunately, whilst there are generally good and bad years, it really depends on the country, region and grape variety. Moreover, good producers with top soil will make good wine in almost every year. unless you are differentiating between vintages of the same producer, you're best off buying wines by type then by producer then by year. in theory, given a constrained budget, you will rarely get to the year question...

if you really care, perhaps buy a vintage book?

in terms of sweetness/dryness, it can depend on lots of factors. in general, how early or late the grapes are harvested has the greatest impact. i.e. harvesting late (spaetlase Riesling from Germany) will mean the grapes have less water and more residual sugar and early harvesting (crappy Pinot Grigio) will leave more acid and more dryness. this is oversimplified but it's a complicated subject.

Answer 7

Good years are acknowledged when the soil is healthy and has produced a grape that makes well-rounded wine. A wine that displays the classic characterstics of the varietal. For example, 1998 was a good year for Rioja because of the climate/weather affecting the soil favourably.
A sweet wine goes through less fermentation before bottling.

Answer 8

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to your question. In America wine varietals are named for the type of grape. In France they are named for the region. Of course there are also blends that can be named whatever the winemaker sees fit. As for knowing what is a good year, that differs depending on what type of grape you are talking about & what region it was grown in. The crops for any given year are effected by the weather, so a good year for a specific crop in France, may not be good in California. I know this isn't the simple answer you were looking for, but I hope this helps.

Answer 9

Ice Wine is definately the sweetest, yet a classic sized bottle of sturdy ice wine will run you around 80 greenbacks!! I actually have a 187ml bottle (somewhat a million/4 of a familiar bottle) and it value 22 greenbacks. not basically the cost, yet i'd desire to down this finished little bottle in approximately 5 seconds and that i wont even experience a buzz. try reisling, its like white grape juice with alcohol. sturdy ones attainable for 10-20 money. happy ingesting!!

Answer 10

Travel to the source of the wine which interests you and sample until you find the taste which you prefer. It's very interesting listening to expert opinion which is well founded, very interesting and indeed factually based. One person's taste may not be another's. How do you determine a good year? You taste and decide for yourself!