When I became a wine nerd overnight in the summer of 1986, I threw myself hungrily over all the literature I could find and devoured every single detail over and over again. One aspect that I really swotted up on was the effect of the weather on the character of the vintage. The more I learned the more importance I attached to this subject, intensely exciting as it is on paper. Because of course, the weather is clearly the most crucial of all when it comes to how a vintage will turn out, is it not. The problem is only that in order to acquire the relevant knowledge one has, generally speaking, to keep a check on all the 365 days and nights in the year.
There are far too many vintages that seem to be practically identical when it comes to figures, but that differ completely in reality. And just as often I have seen many vintages that are twins with regard to style and character, whose comparative weather profiles are very hard to interpret. Look at 2002 and 1982 for example. Their weather facts and figures are relatively far apart from each other, but they behave in a frighteningly identical way. Actually the two most similar vintages I have experienced.
