Question is more than just C.T. I guess.

I picked up a bottle of Le Petit Vin d'Avril today and wanted to look up notes in CT. I realized it's N.V. But presumably these have releases in different years and the notes I'm reading under N.V. don't give me any info about a release so I'm pretty sure they come from different release years. The bottle I have has no info about release year that I can see. Am I missing something on the bottle?

I don't see how I can see what people think of these and be sure I'm not looking at notes of something that had been sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere for a couple of years.

I guess this applies to N.V. champagnes also, though I haven't really explored that world, yet....

Any guidance appreciated.

Keep in mind that most wines that are NV mix different vintages in order to keep the "house style" or wine profile as consistent as possible year to year. Some NV Champagnes list disgorgement dates so you know when it was bottled. Some other wines will give lot numbers to indicate the release of the wine. Sure, some lots or releases may be better than others, but the variance should be less than found in true vintage wines.

The really silly thing on the NV wines is that they give a drinking window. I wish they would delete (or give an option not to print/sort) the drinking window on NV stuff. It's completely pointless.

J. Thomas of Oregon Pinot Noir fame mixed a couple of barrels of his 06 with some 07. Bottled it under the Acme Winery NV label, I bought a case for $16.25@. Best screaming deal for Oregon PN that I have even gotten. Bring on more NV's!

quote:

Originally posted by Ron Natalie:
The really silly thing on the NV wines is that they give a drinking window. I wish they would delete (or give an option not to print/sort) the drinking window on NV stuff. It's completely pointless.

Uhh, "they" is just me.

I have thought about suppressing the community average window for NV wines, but there is a reasonable percentage of NV wines where it is actually a one-off bottling. So the community window makes perfect sense in that case.

The thing is, if you don't like the provided window, just set your own. It takes 2 seconds. Then you will see your window and not the community one.

BTW, within the context of an individual cellar a drinking window for an NV wine makes perfect sense if you know what you bought, when you bought it, and when you want to drink it.

BTW, for wines where you have the disgorgement date, just store that as a bottle-note on the individual bottle. And I do recommend that people add disgorgement dates to tasting notes etc.