English 'vintage' derives from Anglo-French 'vintage,' an altered form of Old French 'vendange' (grape harvest), from Latin 'vīndēmia' (wine-gathering), from 'vīnum' (wine) + 'dēmere' (to take away) — literally 'the taking of the wine,' with the adjective sense of 'classic, high-quality' emerging only in the twentieth century.
The year or place in which wine was produced; by extension, something from the past of high quality or lasting appeal.
From Anglo-French 'vintage,' alteration of Old French 'vendange' (grape harvest), from Latin 'vīndēmia' (grape gathering, vintage), from 'vīnum' (wine) + 'dēmere' (to take off, to remove), from 'dē-' (off, away) + 'emere' (to take, to buy). Latin 'vīnum' traces to a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean wine-culture word, possibly from Proto-Kartvelian *ɣwino- or a lost Anatolian language. The English spelling
The English spelling 'vintage' looks nothing like its French source 'vendange' because Anglo-Norman scribes remodelled the word. The 'vin-' beginning was influenced by 'vine,' and the '-age' ending replaced '-ange' by analogy with the common English suffix '-age.' German solved the translation