What are the great European and American vintages?

What are the great European and American vintages?

Dennis Overstreet (Wine Expert) gives expert video advice on: Why is a wine's vintage so important?; What makes a good vintage?; How are modern growing techniques affecting wine? and more...

Vintage years, one should get very familiar with, vintage charts along the way – these are guides, sort of like when you're driving in a fast Maserati or Ferrari and you see and you see a sign that says ‘curve', that's what great vintages are about – you don't keep going straight and go off the edge, they happen, curves happen in life. Vintage years in Bordeaux and in California; this is something to become very aquatinted with, vintage charts in Bordeaux, which is sort of locomotive that all great wines are about, we look at 2005 – very stellar, we might not see anything like that again in our lifetime. 2003 was one of the hottest vintages ever, people where dying in Europe, it was like someone took a flamethrower and went through the vineyards and got this big ripens that happen, not since 1947 had we seen that. 2000, another outstanding vintage and then we go to 1996, then we go to 1990, then we go to 1986, then we go to 1982 and then we go to the next outstanding vintage which would probably be 1961 and then 1945 but with technology we're probably having outstanding vintages every 3 years to 5 years. We do not usually have outstanding vintages 7 out of 10 years and in California we had the very same type of thing, 1994, 1997, 2002 and 2003 are outstanding vintages.