Read a Wine Label in 4 Points: Producer, Region, Vintage, Level

Key facts

Points to find

4

Year on the label

harvest year

Australia

vintage, variety, region: at least 85%

Burgundy Grand Crus

33 vineyards

Old World labels name the place; New World labels name the grape

European labels put the region first. Labels from Australia, New Zealand or the United States usually put the grape first. The difference comes from two ways of thinking.

In France, each appellation’s rules already fix the grapes. There is no red Chablis, because Chablis must be Chardonnay. The place name tells you the grape.

New World countries do not tie grapes to places that way. Growers plant what they choose, so the grape is the first thing a reader needs.

1 Producer: who made it

The producer is usually the biggest name on the front label, or the top line. In France it often starts with Domaine or Château; elsewhere it may be an estate or family name.

It matters because two estates in the same region can make very different wine. The region says where the grapes grew. The producer decides when to pick, how to ferment and how long to age.

2 Region (Appellation): where the grapes grew

The region is a legally defined area. French labels show it as Appellation … Contrôlée or Appellation d’Origine Protégée. Australia uses Geographical Indications (GIs), such as Barossa Valley.

The smaller the area, the more specific the wine. Bourgogne covers the whole region, a village name narrows it, and a vineyard name is as precise as the system goes.

3 Vintage: the harvest year

The year is when the grapes were picked, not when the wine was bottled. In the Southern Hemisphere the harvest falls early in the year, so an Australian 2021 was picked around February to April 2021.

Both the EU and Australia require at least 85% of the grapes to come from the stated year. The vintage tells you the weather the grapes grew in and how old the wine is.

4 Level (Cru / Classification): the rank of the land or estate

Most wines in the world carry no rank at all. The ones you meet most are Grand Cru and Premier Cru (1er Cru) in Burgundy, which rank vineyards; there are 33 Grand Crus.

In Bordeaux, a rank like Grand Cru Classé applies to a château, not a plot. Always read the rank together with the region.

Two example labels: France and Australia

Both labels below are fictional examples. The producer names are invented for illustration and are not real producers; the regions are real.

The French label reads: an estate in Gevrey-Chambertin made this from a Premier Cru vineyard in 2020 and bottled it itself. No grape is named because the appellation already fixes it.

The Australian label reads: at least 85% Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, harvested in 2021. There is no level, because Australia has no legal vineyard ranking.

Questions people ask