Also 5–6 vyntage. [a. AF. vintage (1353), altered f. of vindage, vendage VENDAGE, OF. vendange, by association with VINTER or VINTNER.]
1. The produce or yield of the vine, either as grapes or wine; the crop or yield of a vineyard or district in a single season. Now rare or Obs.
Quot. 1460 refers to the capture of large supplies of wine from the French.
c. 1450. Brut, II. 372. Þere þay restid ham a while, and sette þe cuntre yn pees & rest tylle þe vyntage were redy to sayle.
a. 1460. Capgrave, Chron., 239. Than the vyntage of Ynglond took a othir felauchip, where thei had a thousand tunne wyn and V. hundred.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., xxii. (1812), II. 55. And there he taryed tyll they had inned all their corne and vyntage.
1589. Fleming, Virg. Georg., II. 21. Not one and selfe same vintage hangs on our Italian trees.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. iv. § 11. By reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage.
1657. Burton’s Diary (1828), I. 327. The commonwealth will be cheated; for most of the wine of this vintage is now in the vintners’ cellars.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., V. 109. Two Goblets will I crown with sparkling Wine, The gen’rous Vintage of the Chian Vine.
1713. Young, Last Day, II. 348. Shine we in arms? or sing beneath our vine? Thine is the vintage, and the conquest Thine.
1748. Gray, Alliance, 57. With grim delight the brood of winter view A brighter day…; Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose, And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.
1818. Mrs. Shelley, Frankenst., i. (1865), 62. Never did … the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage.
1818. Shelley, Euganean Hills, 221. Where … the milk-white oxen slow With the purple vintage strain, Heaped upon the creaking wain.
fig. 1586. Warner, Alb. Eng., IV. xxi. (1589), 89. The Vintage of my thriftles loue is blasted in the bloome.
1647. N. Bacon, Disc. Govt. Eng., I. ii. (1739), 19. This was the vintage of Kings and great men, but the gleanings of the People were much more plentiful.
1820. Shelley, Ode Liberty, xii. 7. How like Bacchanals of blood Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction’s sceptred slaves, and Folly’s mitred brood!
b. poet. Wine, esp. of good or rare quality.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 51. We had excellent cheere, rare vintage, and were drunke after supper.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IV. 67. In solid gold the purple vintage flows.
1820. Keats, To a Nightingale, ii. O! for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 266. The great knight,… Whom they with meats and vintage of their best And talk and minstrel melody entertain’d.
1887. Bowen, Æneid, I. 729. Soon for the goblet she asks,… Then with the vintage fills it.
transf. 1856. B. Taylor, Summer’s Bacchanal, 109. Where the crystal vintage of the mountain Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow.
c. Used with reference to the age or year of a particular wine, usually connoting one of good or outstanding quality; now spec. a wine made from the grape-crop of a certain district in a good year and kept separate on account of its quality.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist., I. v. 6. Nor old,… nor excellent, my Wine, Of five Years Vintage, and a marshy Vine.
1760. Johnson, Idler, No. 97, ¶ 4. He may … regale his palate with a succession of vintages.
1817. Byron, Manfred, II. i. 18. Taste my wine; ’Tis of an ancient vintage.
1864. Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 407. Honest Averill … fetch’d His richest beeswing from a binn reserved For banquets, praised the waning red, and told The vintage.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 605. The principal claret vintages of the 19th century are considered to have been those of 1815, ’25, ’28 [etc.]. Ibid., 608. The last year when the wine was shipped as a vintage.
transf. 1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1879), III. 231. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed.
d. A property yielding wine. rare–1.
1840. Hood, Up Rhine, 231. Last summer we purchased a small cask of wine from a woman who owns a little vintage.
2. The gathering of the ripe grapes in order to make them into wine, including the preliminary processes of wine-making, as pressing and placing the juice in the fermenting vats, etc.; the grape-harvest.
Also in the phrase † to make vintage (see b).
(a) 1540. Act 32 Hen. VIII., c. 14 § 2. From Burdeux to London for everie tonne Wyne at the fyrst vintage,… xviij.s.
1550. T. Nicols, Thucydides, IV. 114 b. Sone after that, a lytle bifore the vintage, that selfe somer.
1560. Bible (Genev.), Micah vii. 1. I am as the somer gatherings, & as the grapes of the vintage.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 405. The grape-gatherer in time of Vintage.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Vintage,… Vine-harvest, Grape-harvest, Grape-gathering, Wine making.
1710. J. Clarke, trans. Rohault’s Nat. Philos. (1729), I. 175. For if it rains a little before the Vintage, the Wine is sharper.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 261. The produce of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc.
1833. Redding, Mod. Wines, iii. (1851), 53. The time of the vintage being fixed, the gathering is begun as early in the day as possible.
1863. T. G. Shaw, Wine, Vine, & Cellar, xi. 285. The vintage is often delayed to such a late period of the season as to incur the danger of injury from frost.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 605/1. The vintage in Médoc usually commences between the middle and end of September and lasts from two to three weeks. The process is a very simple one.
fig. 1860. Pusey, Minor Proph., 197. It was a vintage, not of wine, but of woe.
(b) 1600. Nashe, Summer’s Last Will, F j b. My Lord askes thee, what vintage thou hast made?
1609. Bible (Douay), Jer. xxxi. 5. The planters shal plant, and til the time come they shal not make vintage.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Vitis, My Conjecture is founded upon more than twenty-five Vintages, which I have seen made.
fig. 1609. Bible (Douay), Lam. i. 12. See if there be sorow like to my sorow: because he hath made vintage of me, as our Lord hath spoken.
b. The season or time when this is done. Also with a and pl.
1616. Bullokar, Eng. Expos., Vintage, the time of yeare when wine is made.
1651. R. Child, in Hartlib’s Legacy (1655), 148. I lived in Charanton two leagues from Paris, a whole Vintage, purposely to see how wine was made in France.
1764. Harmer, Observ., I. § 18. 43. If St. Jerome may be believed, the vintage of Judæa is not till the end of September or beginning of October.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Vintage, the season of gathering grapes.
1876. W. C. Bryant, in St. Nicholas Mag., Dec., 101/2. The cider-making season in autumn was, at the time of which I am speaking, somewhat correspondent to the vintage in the wine countries of Europe.
3. attrib., as vintage-ball, -day, -dinner, -eve, feast, -festival, -god, -home (after harvest-home), -man, etc.
1876. ‘Ouida,’ Winter City, xiv. For the Palestrina *vintage balls.
1857. Emerson, Poems, 51. ’Twas the *vintage-day of field and wood.
1838. Miss Pardoe, River & Desart, II. 31. A *vintage-dinner, at which I have just assisted.
1826. Mrs. Hemans, Forest Sanctuary, I. xliii. The hour, the scene,… came floating o’er my mind—A golden *vintage-eve.
a. 1820. S. Rogers, Jacquel., Poems (1839), 24. Thro’ Provence had ceased The vintage and the *vintage-feast.
1846. Grote, Greece (1869), I. 36. Even the spontaneous joy of the vintage-feast was conferred by the favour … of Dionysos.
1833. Philolog. Museum, II. 297. The difficulty of assigning a *vintage festival to the month of February.
1877. Encycl. Brit., VII. 247. The lesser Dionysia … were held in the month of December. This was a vintage festival.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, ix. 276. The cultus of the *vintage-god [sc. Dionysus].
1657. Thornley, trans. Longus’ Daphnis & Chloe, 65. The young gallants thinking to keep the *Vintage holy-dayes.
1839. T. Mitchell, Frogs of Aristoph., Introd. p. cxix. The ingathering of grapes, and, if we may be allowed such a term, the *vintage-home which followed.
1800. Moore, Anacreon, lix. 12. The choral song, the *vintage hymn Of rosy youths and virgins fair.
1706. Stevens, I. Vendimiador, a *Vintage-man that gathers the Grapes.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, V. vii. 29. An infinite number of little pimping Wine-presses, all full of *Vintagemongers, who were picking, examining, and raking the Grapes.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 197. Where aforetime was the *vintage-shout in thankfulness for the ingathering, there … should be wailing.
c. 1820. S. Rogers, Italy (1839), 280. From the first hour, when *vintage-songs broke forth.
1836. Earl Carnarvon, Portugal & Gallicia, I. 94. Groups of vintagers … were gathering grapes, and singing the vintage song.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 148. Staphis … waxeth ripe … at *vintage time.
1671. Milton, P. R., IV. 15. As a swarm of flies in vintage time.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Vitis, Dew is rarely wanting in Vintage-Time.
1820. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., I. i. 574. ’Tis the vintage-time for death and sin.
1885. Pater, Marius, xxvii. II. 222. To see their emperor living there…, his hands red at vintage-time with the juice of the grapes.
b. In sense 1 c, as vintage claret, class, wine, etc.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 608/2. The cheaper wines are an exception…, also those of the so-called ‘vintage’ class, which are the finest wines of a good year kept separate and shipped as the produce of that … year.
1895. Westm. Gaz., 31 Dec., 1/1. There does not seem to be much ‘depression’ in the market for vintage wines. Ibid. (1900), 1 Sept., 2/1. We are allowed to make our little bids for fame with clean shirts, cut hair, sound coats, vintage clarets.
