1968

The 1968 global wine vintage was a deeply challenging, poor, and generally disastrous year for almost all of Western Europe, which suffered from one of the coldest and wettest summers of the 20th century. However, the year is historically redeemed by an absolute golden age in California, which enjoyed a legendary, flawless harvest that permanently elevated Napa Valley onto the world stage. 

The striking geographical divide of the 1968 vinta...

The 1968 wine vintage in Bordeaux was an absolute weather disaster and is widely considered the worst Bordeaux vintage of the post-WWII era. A cold, gloomy spring was followed by a relentlessly wet and freezing summer, culminating in a catastrophic August that saw widespread fruit rot, severe mildew, and a total failure of the grapes to achieve sugar or phenolic maturity. The harvest was so waterlogged that the resulting red wines were thin, pale, aggressively high in green acidity, and took on harsh, vegetal flavors. Because the quality was so abysmal, the vast majority of the region's elite estates—including Left Bank giants like Château Latour and Right Bank legends like Château Pétrus—flatly refused to bottle a vintage wine, instead selling their crop off in bulk or declassifying it entirely. Virtually no drinkable or viable bottles exist from this harvest, leaving 1968 Bordeaux purely as a bleak historical footnote for collectors to avoid

The 1968 wine vintage in Burgundy was a complete disaster and a total washout, closely mirroring the dismal, weather-plagued catastrophe that ruined Bordeaux across France. A relentlessly cold, gloomy, and sun-starved summer combined with catastrophic rainfall during the harvest caused widespread rot, severe mildew, and a total failure of the Pinot Noir grapes to achieve proper phenolic ripeness. The resulting red wines were pale, watery, aggressively acidic, and plagued by harsh, vegetal flavors, rendering them entirely unviable for cellaring. Because the fruit quality was so abysmal, the region's elite estates—most notably Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC)—chose to completely declassify or cancel their entire production for the year rather than release sub-standard bottles under their labels. Virtually no drinkable or viable bottles survive from this harvest, making 1968 Burgundy a completely forgotten and dead year in wine history.

The 1968 wine vintage in California was an absolute golden age, monumental triumph, and arguably the most important vintage in American history. A textbook, flawless growing season featured perfectly warm summer days and characteristically cool Napa and Sonoma nights, allowing Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to achieve astonishing flavor concentration, perfect sugar levels, and vibrant natural acidity without any heat spikes. This pristine fruit birthed legendary, slow-maturing blockbusters—most famously the mythical 1968 Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) Georges de Latour Private Reserve and early masterpieces from Robert Mondavi—that effortlessly cellared for over 50 years. By delivering flawless structural power and rich complexity that completely outclassed Europe's rain-soaked disasters, the 1968 vintage permanently elevated California onto the world stage and established Napa Valley as a premier global wine destination.

The 1968 wine vintage in Australia was an excellent, highly successful, and historic year that stood as another magnificent New World triumph against Europe's wet weather disasters. A beautifully balanced and warm growing season across South Australia allowed regions like the Barossa Valley and Coonawarra to harvest deeply concentrated, perfectly ripe Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. The resulting red wines were celebrated for their rich, powerful fruit profiles, robust tannin structures, and incredible longevity. Most famously, this exceptional climate enabled the legendary Penfolds winery to craft the monumental 1968 Penfolds Grange (Bin 95), which critics and collectors still revere as a spectacular, slow-maturing masterpiece. Along with California, Australia's stellar 1968 performance firmly proved that the Southern and Western Hemispheres were entering a golden era of world-class, cellar-worthy fine wines.

The 1968 wine vintage in Italy was a highly disappointing, damp, and poor year across primary regions like Piedmont and Tuscany, where severe autumn rainstorms bloated and rotted the grapes right before harvest. This hostile weather rendered standard Barolos and Chiantis light, thin, and aggressively acidic, causing virtually all standard bottles to fade past their prime decades ago. However, the vintage achieved immortal, legendary status because the coastal Tuscan estate of San Guido completely defied the interior weather, utilizing this exact harvest to officially launch the very first commercial vintage of Sassicaia. This lone, robust Cabernet-blend masterpiece bypassed the traditional DOC rules to birth the global "Super Tuscan" movement, making 1968 a historic landmark for Italian wine despite the abysmal weather.

The 1968 wine vintage in Spain was a highly difficult, cold, and wet year for most of the country, leaving La Rioja with underripe, highly acidic Tempranillo grapes that resulted in thin and forgettable standard blends. However, the vintage achieved mythic status because the iconic Vega Sicilia estate in Ribera del Duero completely defied the terrible weather. Through radical vineyard sorting and meticulous barrel management, they crafted the legendary 1968 Vega Sicilia Único, which wine critics globally celebrate as one of the greatest, most complex, and longest-lived Spanish red wines ever produced. Aside from this lone, expensive masterpiece, the only other successful 1968 Spanish wines were those safely absorbed into long-aging fortified Sherry Soleras in Jerez.

1968 was a good year for Italian heavyweight wines such as Barolo and Brunello. Whilst Bordeaux suffered from a poor vintage, 1968 marked somewhat of a renaissance for Italian wines particularly those from Tuscany and Piedmont. 1968 was the vintage that Sassicaia was first offered on the open market. 
 

Poor weather in Bordeaux throughout the growing and harvest seasons led to a small, low quality, vintage. Most of the 1968 wine produced was consumed within a few years of the vintage and very few examples exist today. Those that still exist are well into decline and are unlikely to be of good drinking.

Champagne / Dreadful year, with heavy spring frosts, followed by hail, then rot, that produced thin, mean wines used for blending at best

Australia /  A long and very difficult vintage which reduced yields by 50% to an average of 3.0 tonnes/ha. This was caused by a very dry growing season (Nuriootpa received less than half of its normal rainfall), a very hot, dry January with only a little relief from 25mm of rain in January and February. These conditions produced low Baume white wines and light red wines.

In 1968 there were 6,934 hectares of vineyards in Barossa and 20,971 tonnes of wine grapes were crushed in that vintage.

New rootstocks were released in South Australia (Ramsey, 1613 and Dogridge) providing new options for growers facing nematode, salinity or vigour problems. A number of new varieties also became available after many years of grower action. These included Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Tokay, Sauvignon Blanc and Alicante Bouchet.

Irrigation research and soil moisture management was now becoming a major area of research at the Department of Agriculture’s Nuriootpa Research Station.

In winemaking, pectolytic enzymes were now widely used. Mechanisation had progressed in refrigeration, where screw compressors were now being used, and in packaging as AGM supplied the first palletised, sterile packed bottles for Orlando’s new high speed, fully automatic sterile bottling plant which was commissioned in 1968.

The 1967 Penfolds Grange Hermitage won the 1968 Jimmy Watson Trophy.

1968 In both Europe and America Japanese imported cars and other goods were continuing to rise and trouble the governments of UK and USA as they worried about industries in their own countries being effected and jobs lost. In the spring of 1968 on 4th April The Rev Martin Luther King was assassinated and Robert Kennedy was mortally wounded when he is shot by Sirhan Sirhan. The peace movement had continued to grow and more and more Americans were against the war in Vietnam, and once again more riots occurred throughout cities in America. The music scene was once again set by the "Beatles" and the "Rolling Stones" , and fashion flirted with see through blouses and midis and maxis skirts joined the Mini Skirt as part of the fashion trends. There is a Flu Pandemic in Hong Kong and the first Black power salute is seen on Television worldwide during an Olympics medal ceremony