Birth Year & Anniversary Wine: How to Choose a Bottle by Vintage

A wine with a year on it is one of the few gifts that cannot be bought at the last minute from a shelf of identical items. The year is the point. This guide explains how to choose one properly, what is realistic to expect at each price level, and what to do when the exact year you need is not available.

Start here: pick the year, then the region

Most people arrive with a fixed year — a birth year, a wedding year, a company's founding year, a tenth or thirtieth anniversary. The year is not negotiable, so it has to be the first filter. Browse by band below, then narrow by region and budget:

• 1989 and older — 60th, 50th and 40th anniversaries; birth years for anyone born before 1990
• 1990–1999 — 30th anniversaries and thirtieth birthdays
• 2000–2009 — 20th anniversaries; the best balance of age, drinkability and price
• 2010–2015 — 10th anniversaries and children born early in the decade

If you are shopping for a round-number anniversary this year, these are the three years most people are looking for: 1996 (thirty years), 2006 (twenty years) and 2016 (ten years).

Not every wine survives its own vintage

This is the part that catches people out. Most wine made in any given year was built to be drunk within three to five years, and a bottle from 1985 that was never meant to age will be brown and tired rather than impressive. When you are buying by year rather than by taste, stay inside the categories that reliably last:

• Vintage Port — the most forgiving old wine there is. A Port from the 1960s or 1970s is still likely to be in good condition, and it is usually the cheapest way to buy a genuinely old bottle.
• Classed-growth Bordeaux — built for decades. Reliable back to the 1960s in good vintages, and there is enough of it that prices stay sane.
• Sauternes and other sweet wines — sugar and acidity preserve them almost indefinitely. Often overlooked, and often the best value old bottle on the list.
• Madeira — effectively indestructible. If you need a very obscure year, this is frequently the only category that still has one.
• Vintage Champagne — ages well for thirty years or more and feels appropriate for a celebration in a way a still red does not.

Burgundy, Barolo and Rioja Gran Reserva also age well, but condition varies more bottle to bottle. We are happy to tell you honestly which of the two or three options for a given year is the safer choice.

What each band costs

Rough guidance, for a bottle in sound condition rather than a trophy label:

• 2010–2015 — the widest choice at every budget. A memorable bottle does not require a large sum here.
• 2000s — still plentiful. This is the decade where a serious-looking wine from a named estate is genuinely affordable.
• 1990s — noticeably thinner supply. Expect to pay a clear premium over the 2000s for the same estate.
• 1989 and older — priced by scarcity rather than quality. Port and Sauternes are the value routes; Bordeaux from a famous vintage is not.

Older is not automatically better, and it is not automatically more impressive to the person receiving it. A well-chosen 2006 that is drinking beautifully tonight is a better gift than a fragile 1976 nobody dares open.

When the exact year does not exist

Some years simply were not bottled in quantity, and some were poor enough that little survives. Three honest workarounds, in order of how well they usually land:

1. Move to a different category in the same year. If there is no Bordeaux from that year, there is often a Port, a Sauternes or a Madeira. The year is what matters to the recipient, not the grape.
2. Use the year of the occasion rather than the year of birth. A wine from the year they were married, graduated, or started the business carries the same weight.
3. Buy the year they will celebrate next. A 2016 bought now for a tenth anniversary, cellared until the date, is a more thoughtful gift than a compromised old bottle.

What we will not do is quietly substitute a nearby vintage. If the year you asked for is not available, we will say so.

Practical notes before you buy

• Old bottles need standing up. Let anything over twenty years old stand upright for a day before opening so the sediment settles, and decant it off that sediment.
• Corks over thirty years old are fragile. A two-pronged ah-so opener is worth having; a standard corkscrew will often tear an old cork in half.
• Open old wine early in the evening, not late. Some old bottles are wonderful for twenty minutes and then fade. Serve it first, not last.
• Label condition is normal. Stained or scuffed labels on a forty-year-old bottle are a sign of honest cellaring, not a defect. We photograph the actual bottle where the label matters.
• Buy earlier than you think. Single-bottle vintages do not come back into stock. If you find the right year, that is the moment.

If you know the year and want a recommendation rather than a list, message us with the year, the budget and one line about the person. We will come back with two or three options and tell you which one we would send ourselves.