Non-vintage??

[sweetirish]

Here I was, a mere rookie wine drinker at her first winery. It happened to be Rex Hill, by the way. I started tasting the wines and came
across something new that I hadn't ever heard of before. A non-vintage wine. I asked about it and the women said that it was just a wine that had grapes from two different years. Is
there anything else about a non-vintage wine that I should know??

PS...It was a Kings Ridge White Reisling and was very yummy. Actually was my favorite out of the whole lot.

[winoweenie]

IM, Nah..Nothing mysterious about it. Sometimes the winemaker has some extra juice left over from a prolific vintage and blends it with the next vintage which may have had smaller production. Also, maybe the current stuff needs propping up. He'll blend in the left-over from the last crop that may make the current stuff better. (in a nutshell) WW

[chittychattykathy]

Sweetirish,
The "politically correc"t term is "Multiple Vintage" shame on them for not using it! [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
It simply means that different vintages were blended in order to produce a better wine, as ole' WW said.
Another use for blending multiple vintages is to create NV (or rather, "multiple vintage") champagnes, ports, sherries... They blend several vintages together in order to create their particular "house" style year after year.

[barnesy]

I was at Rexhill last weekend. I agree, their reisling was their only wine that was worth drinking. I think the one I have is a vintage one though. Their reds were all oak and no fruit, their other whites were bland. Their sparkling was ok though.

Barnesy

[sweetirish]

Thank you Barnesy!!! You just identified the taste that I could not place! On the reds, there was a flavor that I definatly did NOT like....It tasted like smoke to me. I'm pretty sure it's the oak you mentioned.

=-)

Learning things every day...