Vintage car

Vintage car?

Reader question:

What is a “vintage car”? Is it the equivalent of “classic car”?

My comments:

Yeah, a vintage car is a classic in the sense that it's old (and good) unless of course if you're talking about one of those old car fanatics, or if you like, connoisseurs.

To the old-car collector, there might be a difference between a Vintage car and a Classic car, but first, definitions for vintage.

Vintage is originally a term from wine-making, referring to a particular year's harvest of a particular grape used in bottling a particular wine. Usually only good-year crops are used to make vintage wine, which often uses an exclusive crop. Presumably in a bad year, say, a year hit by natural disasters, when crops in general are of poor quality, wine makers have to mix up different crops to produce a mixed-crop wine. In other words, mass production.

In short, vintage implies good quality (as older wine often tastes better).

Henceforth when people talk about a vintage film or vintage performance, they mean to say it's typically good. For example, when a critic talks about Annie Hall and Manhattan as vintage Woody Allen films, they like the films. Or if critics say Jet Li gives another vintage performance in Huo Yuan Jia, they're giving the actor the nod – the approval is likewise implicit.

With old-age cars, however, a Vintage car might be different from a Classic car. When they talk about old automobiles, car fans in America, for example, tend to view the 1920s as the Vintage Era whereas the Classic Era as coming after World War II, that is, post-1945.

Anyways, here are “vintage” examples from the media:

1. Roger Federer gave US Open fans a “vintage performance” today after his recent slip from divine to merely fine tennis, Bonnie Ford writes on ESPN. “I had moments out there where I really felt, ‘This is how I normally play on hard court',” Federer said after beating Novak Djokovic 6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in the semifinal. “So it was a very nice feeling, actually, to get that feeling back.”

2. A “Vintage Date” is shown on many bottles of wine. The vintage date indicates the year in which the grapes were harvested.

The one exception is for very late harvested wines in Europe such as ‘eiswein' (or ‘icewine' in Canada). Even though the harvest of the grapes may extend past January 1st, the wine still carries the vintage year of the year in which the grapes were grown.

In the Northern Hemisphere, grapes are usually harvested between August through October (depending on the grape variety and local climate). Grapes harvested in October of 2003 will carry the 2003 vintage date even though the finished wine may not be released until 2004 (or even 2005 for many red wines).

In the Southern Hemisphere, grapes are harvested from February though April. Wines made from grapes harvested in March of 2003 will carry the 2003 vintage date no matter when the finished wines are released.

Regulations in the United States require that 95 percent of the grapes used to make a wine must come from the harvest in the labeled vintage year. Many countries have similar regulations to allow winemakers a little leeway but still maintain the integrity of the vintage date.

Wines bearing a Vintage Date on the label are usually of higher quality than “non-vintage” wines. This is not always the case, but usually you will find that wines that offer greater specificity of information about the vintage or source of the grapes will be of higher quality.

3. Champagne can be sold with or without a vintage date, though if it is to have a vintage date 100 percent of the blend needs to come from that vintage. If non-vintage, it cannot be put on the market until twelve months after 1 January following the harvest. If vintage, the stipulation is a minimum of three years. All Champagne houses produce a range of Champagnes from a basic non-vintage wine upwards. The non-vintage wine is the mass-produced brand, and therefore in this sense the flagship wine of the house. Non-vintage Champagne probably makes up 85 percent or more of the market.

Vintage Champagne, like vintage Port, is something special. It is, or should be, only declared in exceptional years, say, three or four times a decade, and it should be a wine of high quality, left to mature until it is round, complex, richly textured and full-flavoured. It should not be drunk as an aperitif, before the taste buds are ready to appreciate it, but with food or perhaps after a splendid meal when it can receive the full attention it deserves. Top vintage Champagnes need ten years to mature. The best include Bollinger, Alfred Gratien, Pol Roger, Roederer and Veuve Clicquot.