Vintageport.se
Est. 2011
Soon it is time for the annual Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen. As usual the festival is arranged by Henrik Oldenburg. Due to the fire at Børsen, the event has been moved both in time and place. The event will take place on Monday November 18 at Det Ny Teater in Copenhagen.
Tickets are available through Forlaget Smag, see details on their web site: https://www.forlaget-smag.dk/
Hope to see you there!
As usual Theis Vine arrange a fantastic tasting of the latest vintage of Bordeaux wines. We are sure many port lovers also love great Bordeaux wines, and this is a great opportunity for all of you to try Bordeaux vintage 2023 already now. There are as usual a wide range of other very good wines to taste as well.
The event will this year take place at Moltkes Palæ in Copenhagen on the 5th of September. Tickets are available from Theis Vine here.
This year we thought it would be nice to taste all Vintage Ports from 1994 again. At 30 years of age also the slowest matured should be in a phase where they have opened up enough to fully enjoy them. This turned out to be true, all ports were in a good stage even if there is a significant difference in maturity between the wines of the more faster maturing producers and the more slowly maturing.
For the tasting we had collected 49 different Vintage Ports. We have ranked the 1994 vintage as an Outstanding, and there are for sure in many of the top producers that have made impressive Vintage Ports that will also keep well for some more decades in the cellar. There are however also quite many that do not live up to the general reputation of 1994 and are already peaking or even past the peak. After all it was still a wonderful tasting with many extraordinary wines. The clear winner was Quinta do Vesuvio, which got the highest score from almost all of the participants in the tasting.
Most of the top producers, like Fonseca, Taylor, Graham and Warre also ended up in the top ten. Some surprises in the top ten were Skeffington and Quinta do Sagrado from Calem.
All tasting notes, ranking and points can be found here.
The port wine fair in Leverkusen, organized by Axel Probst and the World of Port was as usual very well organized with many good producers of port, showing their last vintage port as well as some older samples. The fair was held on November 24, 2023.
In addition to the fair there was also a master class with the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys is a cooperation between some of the best independent producers of Douro wines and Port. It was formed in 2003, mainly in order to promote the Douro table wines that was fairly new at the time. The Douro Boys includes Quinta do Vallado, Van Zellers & Co., Quinta do Vale Meão, Quinta do Crasto and Niepoort.
At the master class we tasted the Douro Boys Vintage port 2011 and 2017 as well as a bottle from one selected vintage port from each producer. The Douro Boys Vintage Port is a blend of wines from the five produces and are produced in a very limited quantity and only on Magnums. Only 250 magnums were made of the Douro Boys Vintage Port 2011 and only 350 magnums were made of the 2017 vintage port.
For tasting notes, see the wines tasted on November 23 and 24 here.
Due to Covid, some of the family was ill on December 23 these last couple of years, when we were about to hold our Christmas tasting. Something we’ve written about on our website in January 2022 and January 2021.
But on the first of August this year, we finally managed to gather the family, something we had looked forward to. We kicked off the evening with two champagnes: Blanc de Blanc Sillery Grand Cru 2015 from Francois Secondé, and Brut Epernay 2004 from Alfred Gratien. To accompany the starter, we had Clos de la Coulée de Serrant 1992 from Joly, Savennières, Loire and Clos des Chevaliers 2011 from Jean Charton. The main course was served with Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1952 and Ch. Margeaux 1952, and the dessert was enjoyed with Burmester and Sandeman Vintage Port – both from 1922. It was a marvelous, but very late, Christmas meal.
This December, we did not want to miss another Christmas, so we started our tasting already on the 22nd of December with Lilbert’s Champagne Cramant 2018, Blanc de Blanc, Grand Cru. To the starter, salmon and shrimp pie, we had a Chablis Premier Cru Troesmes 2018 by Le Domaine d’Henri and Clos de la Coulee de Serrant 2003. With the main course, a delicious deer, we enjoyed Ch. Margeaux and Ch. Haut Brion – both from 1973 – and with the cheese: Taylor and Fonseca Vintage Port from 1963.
On the 23rd of December, we finally had our great Christmas dinner, all 15 of us – the entire family. We started off with J. Lassalle’s Cuvee Angeline Prem Cru 2009 and Marie-Noelle Ledru’s Viticultrice Grand Cru from 2010. We had smoked heart from ox, reindeer, and elk, and with that we enjoyed Ch. Lafite Rothschild, Ch. Latour and Ch. Cheval Blanc – all from 1973. The main course was fish (witch flounder), which was served with the following wines: Clos Ste Hune 1991 from Trimbach, Alsace, Ch. Laville Haut Brion 1976 from Grave and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 2017 from Fontaine-Gagnard in Chassagne Montrachet.
The dessert was a Charlotte Russe cake and with it, we enjoyed Vintage Port Ramos Pinto and Hooper 1923 and Royal Oporto 1868. It was a marvelous meal and evening!
Due to a certain Celebration Day, we decided to have a Great Tasting with our Wine Club “The 18%” on the 5th of November, together with our German port wine friends. This meant that they could continue to the Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen on the next day.
Dow has always been one of my favorite houses. I fell in love with it at one of my first tastings, when I was offered Dow 1912. This was in Hans Just’s wine cellar, in January 1983, at the Port Wine Club in Copenhagen (est 1981).
After that, my family and I have been drinking some wonderful Dow, such as 1904, 1912, 1946, 1950, 1954 and 1962. At this tasting, I intended to serve all the Dow I had in my cellar between 1890 and 1997, because we believed that 24 port was enough for the tasting. Here are our Tastings Results.
It was a marvelous tasting indeed!
/Sten
This years festival, on November 6, started with a master class led by Christian Seely, owner of Quinta da Romaneira, and also Managing Director of Quinta do Noval (owned by AXA’s Millésimes).
In 2004 Christian Seely bought Quinta da Romaneira together with several other investors. Today only one other investor remains. After several years of replanting and renovation the Quinta has improved the quality of their wines a lot. They produce not only Port Wine but also good table wines, both white and red of which we got to taste some nice examples.
From the companies Tawny Port Wine range we got to taste the 10 years old Tawny, the 40 years old Tawny and a Colheita 2007. All very good ports in their category. Of the Vintage Ports we were served the latest release, i.e. Vintage Port 2021 together with the 2016 and 2007. Both 2016 and 2007 are fantastic vintages and they are still youthful and will improve a lot with longer cellaring. The 2021 shows some impressive dark fruit and is very promising indeed.
Overall it was a perfect start on the day and Mr. Seely is always very entertaining when presenting the wines. Also thanks, JP & Troels from the Danish importers VintagePortvin.dk
In the tasting room we focused, as always, on the Vintage Ports and this year there were just above 55 different to choose from – impressive. A wide range of brands and producers were represented, many smaller producers like Quinta da Devesa, Kranemann and Quinta da Trovisca have not been doing Vintage Ports for very long, but also well-known houses like Dow’s, Warre’s, Sandeman and Niepoort were represented. Overall it was as usual a great event and you can find all the tasting notes here on our web site.
Keep an eye on Bordeaux 2022!
At Theis Bordeaux tasting in Copenhagen, on September 6th, we hade the pleasure of tasting the Bordeaux vintage 2022 as well as some other fantastic wines. The vintage 2022 is truly remarkable with an excellent quality. In addition to the fine wines the setting it very good. There are few times you have the ability to try as many outstanding wines as on this fair.
Most producers had one wine from 2022 and another from an older vintage. On these older wines we found several with a nice development. However, the main spotlights were all focused on the 2022 vintage. Some of the very best wines, not in order, include:
In addition, on the sweet side we must mention:
In summary, the vintage 2022 is excellent and shows great potential for the future. It will be very interesting to follow it’s development.
This years Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen will as usual be held the first Monday in November, so this year November 6, at Børsen Copenhagen. The event is held by well known port wine expert Mr. Henrik Oldenburg and Forlaget Smag.
This is a perfect opportunity to taste a lot of high-quality port wines from a large number of importers/producers. Both from the larger port wine houses, but also from smaller and less well-known producers often with representatives at the location willing to answer any question.
Tickets can be bought from Forlaget Smag here: https://www.forlaget-smag.dk/kob-billet-portvin
On May 4 we celebrated the 30 Year Anniversary of our wine club ‘The Wine Society 18%’ that was founded in 1993.
To celebrate we decided to have a tasting of Messias Vintage Ports from 1960 up to 2011. There were several of these Vintage Ports that we had never tasted before, so we were very excited to try the 17 Vintages we had collected for the tasting.
Some of the older wines were very mature, but still quite wonderful, even if they were a bit more like tawnies in color and style, with very delicate and elegant, sweet style. The 1970 was ranked as the best wine of the night, perhaps not so surprising since 1970 always seems to perform good – almost regardless of the producer. Several of the other old Vintages like 1960 and 1965 also performed well, so did the pair from 1982 and 1983.
All tasting notes and points from the tasting can be found here.