Author Archives: Stefan

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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Another year has passed by and we have tasted a lot of fantastic Vintage Ports during this last year. We now have tasting notes for more than 1,500 different Vintage Ports.

We also reached the milestone of 150,000 visitors to our web site since we started it five years ago. Thank you all for visiting our site and thank you all for the kind words we here from you.

Warres1958Among the all the tastings we had during this last year there are now some new added to our section of Great Tastings. We have had tasting on both Vintage 1988 and Vintage 1958, and we also have a report from the fantastic vertical on Calem, arranged by Axel Probst, that we participated in. So please enjoy reading about these tastings.

We hope that 2017 will bring many more fantastic tastings and events. See you all next year!

 

Copenhagen Port Wine Festival 2016

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Dominic Symington and Gustavo Devesas

The annual port wine festival in Copenhagen, arranged by Henrik Oldenburg, was this year visited by well-known Dominic Symington from the Symington Family Estates. Dominic arranged, with help from Gustavo Devesas (Market Manager at the Symingtons) a tasting to show that the terroir and micro climate of the quintas in the Douro valley are very different. By tasting six of the Symington Single Quintas we could all see the difference between Quinta da Cavadinha, Quinta do Bomfim, Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta dos Canais, Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira and Quinta do Vesuvio. To understand the differences better we tasted all of these quintas from both 2001 and 2010 to also see the maturation aspect of the different terroirs. Dominic talked about the work the Symingtons are doing to improve the quality in all of the quintas using modern technology combined with their long experience. The harvest can for instance be done in a more optimal way by investigating how strong the vines are throughout the quinta and then harvest different parts of the quintas at different days for perfect grapes.

festival2016_2In the open tasting we could as usual taste quite a lot of interesting Vintage Ports. There were several mature Vintage Ports from some of the importers. We were as usual impressed by the range of mature Vintage Ports from Vintageportvin.dk, and we could taste a lot of mature Vintage Ports from the Symington houses Smith Woodhouse and Gould Campbell from the vintages 1977, 1980, 1985 and 2000 and also Quarles Harris from 1977. From these the 1977, 1980 and 1985 are really impressive and peaking today and the 2000 is also nice today but it is a perfect investment for the cellar. We could also taste Warre’s Vintage Port from both 1980 and 2000 at the Kjaer Sommerfeldt table, both really good.

We would like to thank Henrk Oldenburg, Dominic Symington, Gustavo Devesas and all Danish importers for an enjoyable festival and hope to see you all again soon.

Henrik Oldenburg’s new port wine book

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PortvinBook2016The port wine festival in Copenhagen is coming up, and so is the new port wine book from Henrik Oldenburg, the organizer of the festival. The book is the 4th edition of “Portvin” (port wine in danish) and it will be released at the port wine festival on November 7. It is said to be the biggest book in the world about port wine. The book will have 520 pages and include information about more than 100 port producers.

Check out more info on Forlaget Smag webpage.

Philipson Wine tasting

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In Philipson Wine’s tasting according to their 25 th birthday they had some marvelous Burgundy such as Ruchottes-Chambertin 2014 Grand Cru from Domaine Frédéric Esmonin, 2013 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 2013 from Domaine de la Vougeraie and Corton Grand Cru Cuvee Charlotte Dumay 2012 from Hospice du Beaune. Some Grand Cru from Chablis and of course lovely Colheita from Burmester such as 1957, 1985 and 2000.

We also enjoyed a large variety of Italian wine from Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino (with some remarkable samples from the praised 2010 Vintage) and Tuscany.

Theis Vine Bordeaux tasting at Børsen in Copenhagen

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Theis Vine had, as every year, a wonderful tasting at The stock exchange (Børsen) in Copenhagen a few week ago. Even though there are no Port Wines we must say that it is a really good tasting with opportunity to try the last vintage of Bordeaux. This year the focus was on Bordeaux from 2015 which shows fantastic potential and future! Generally speaking we found lots of nice pure fruit balanced with tough tannins in the wines. We recommend all of you with a wine cellar to invest in many cases of the 2015 for the future. We also tasted some Bordeaux’s from earlier vintages. Among the best were the excellent 2010s from Petit Village and Chateau Pichon Longueville – Baron. We also liked Chateau Leoville Barton and Leoville Poyferre from 2012.

In addition to top quality Bordeaux wines the tasting has the last few years expanded to include some Burgundy wines, Champagnes from Billecart-Salmon and other high quality wines. This year Billecart-Salmon had six vintage champagnes for tasting, among these the fantastic Le Clos Saint-Hilaire 1999. Marvelous!

If you missed the tasting this year we do recommend you to go next year.

Port Wine Day enjoyed with Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas 1972 and 1976

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We celebrated the Port Wine Day with our families with two rarely seen vintages from Quinta de Vargellas, 1972 and 1976. Both are actually very good and they are peaking now. If we have to choose one that was slightly better it would be the 1976. You can read our tasting notes here.

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Theis annual Bordeaux tasting in Copenhagen, Denmark

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On September 7 Theis Vine opens its doors for the annual tasting at the Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark. The main focus for the tasting is the great chateaux of Bordeaux, with both samples from the last vintage, 2015, as well as beads of older vintages directly from the producers’ own cellars. Furthermore, a selection of some other wines from the rest of the world are also available.

The Big Fortified Tasting, London

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On April 22 we visited The Big Fortified Tasting at Church House, Westminster, London. The venue was well planned and well organized. In addition to the general tasting we attended two Master Classes; Niepoort’s Bioma Vinha Velha and Madeira.

We had the opportunity to taste several new Vintage Port as well as some old colheita port, such as Kopke 1941. In addition to port there was an impressive selection of Vintage Madeira. D’Olivieira had the widest selection of Vintage Madeira with Boal 1987, Boal 1977, Verdelho 1981, Verdelho 1986, Terrantez 1977 and Sercial 1989. In addition Justinos and Blandy was also represented with some Vintage Madeira.

In addition to Port and Madeira there were Mosacatel de Setubal, Marsala and a vast selection of Sherry’s.

The Master class “Niepoort’s Bioma Vinha Velha” offered vertical tasting of the Pisca vineyard where Dirk Niepoort took us through all the vintages released so far. The first vintage was Pisca 2007. Due to name registration issues Niepoort had to change names to Bioma, which is the current name. The following wines were Bioma 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In addition Dirk Niepoort let us try cask samples of the two batches of port that will be mixed to make the coming vintage 2015.

The Madeira Master class “A Wide Range of Unique Wines” with The Madeira Wine Institute and Rui Falcao gave a very good overview of Madeira and the new legislation.

Author: Jörgen