"The fact is that bad vintages are now almost unknown."

Not true at all. There are plenty of bad vintages. Try to find 2014 Austrian wines. Not easy because it was a bad vintage.

I think it is true for new world wines. I read California 2011 is supposed to be the worst vintage in mans memory, but the wines from there are just fine. But in north europe, bad menas bad; as in barely any yield, most plants having botrytis, magnesium, acid wasp attacks, wet harvest, because ochsel numbers only rise above 80 in mid october.