A birth year, a wedding year, the year a company was founded — preserving that “year” in a bottle of wine.

Vintage wine offers more than flavour. It offers the appeal of giving time itself.

Opening a wine from someone’s birth year on their coming-of-age celebration or a milestone birthday.

Sharing a wine from the year of a marriage on an anniversary.

Opening a bottle from a company’s founding year at an anniversary celebration.

When the year printed on the label overlaps with a personal memory, the bottle becomes something more than simply a drink.

What are “birth-year wines” and “anniversary wines”?

The vintage shown on a wine label generally indicates the year in which the grapes were harvested.

For example, a wine labelled “2006” is made primarily from grapes harvested in 2006.

Choosing a vintage that matches the year you were born or the year of an important event allows you to share not only the date itself, but also the climate and character of the place in that particular year.

Vintage wine is especially well suited to gifts where the year itself carries meaning — birthdays, wedding anniversaries, 60th birthdays, coming-of-age celebrations, retirements, company anniversaries, new homes, or the birth of a child.

Older does not always mean better

When looking for a birth-year wine, one important point is that “older” does not automatically mean “more valuable” or “more delicious.”

Some wines are made for long ageing, while others are intended to be enjoyed when young. Only certain wines have the concentration of fruit, acidity, tannin, sugar and overall structure needed to evolve successfully over several decades.

For that reason, when choosing a wine from thirty or forty years ago, it is important to look beyond the matching year and also consider the producer, region, reputation of the vintage and ageing potential.

For an anniversary year, connect the meaning of the year with the story of the wine

A matching vintage is already special. But choosing a wine whose background also suits the recipient can make the bottle even more memorable.

Château Mouton Rothschild, for example, is also known for having, in principle, a different artist create the label for each vintage since 1945.
Because the label design changes from year to year, choosing a birth-year or wedding-year vintage adds another meaning: giving a work of art that belongs uniquely to that year.
The ability to preserve not only the wine’s ageing and flavour, but also the spirit of the era and the individuality of the artist on the label, is part of what makes Château Mouton Rothschild especially compelling as a commemorative wine.

The same year can still mean very different prices

The price of a birth-year wine is not determined simply by how old it is.

Producer reputation, production volume, vineyard classification, vintage quality, storage condition and market scarcity can create major differences in price. Even among wines from the same year, some may be found for tens of thousands of yen, while others may cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of yen.

It is often easier to begin by setting a budget, then narrowing the search in this order: “the right year,” “a wine capable of long ageing,” and “a bottle in good condition.”

A wine to drink now, or a wine to keep?

An anniversary wine does not always have to be opened immediately.

You might open a mature 1996 wine on a 30th birthday, or buy a wine from the year you married in 2026 and keep it until your 10th or 20th anniversary.

Are you choosing a bottle as a way to look back on the years already lived, or as a bottle that will continue to age with the years ahead? Thinking about that distinction makes the meaning of the gift even clearer.

Find a birth-year or anniversary bottle at IMAMI

Available at IMAMI

IMAMI is a specialist retailer offering wine, whisky, sake and Japanese drinking vessels. If you are looking for a birth-year or anniversary wine, please enquire at IMAMI Ginza, IMAMI Shinsaibashi, or contact us.

Vintage wine availability changes frequently, and some bottles are one-off stock.