Re Champagne Vintage to Non Vintage
Vintage should only be made in exceptional years and your right there NOT always good.
Non Vintage however does NOT mean it is any lesser wine in fact the winemaker gets to blend from different vinatges and use his skills to make a balanced bubbly.
It seems in Australia, NZ and Canada there is a preoccupation with Vintage over Non vintage. However my cynical view would be just a way they think of how to charge you more...
I think in Australia we (the average consumer) are used to a certain amount of information on the label: vintage, varieties, region. For this reason Aussie producers sometimes see vintage sparkling as more commercially acceptable.
They are however, allowed for up to 15% of the wine to be from a different vintage and you can guarantee in a difficult year large producers will take advantage of this to make a better, more balanced wine.
The idea behind a NV sparkling is it should be consistent to the house style and not show vintage variation. There is also another class, all be it small, of blended sparkling which allows for variation in quality. Examples of this would be Champagne Jacquesson, where each NV wine has a different number eg 732, 733, or the new Bay of Fires multi vintage (MV).
