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.
Vesuvio 1994
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.
The Douro Boys
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.
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.
The annual Portweinmesse in Leverkusen, November 2022, included two master class events. The first led by Carlos Alves from Sogevinus explaining how to blend old Tawny Port. Included in the tasting was a sample of the relatively new category 50 year old tawny port.
The second master class was led by George Sandeman, who currently is the Chancellor of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto. We had the rare opportunity to be able to taste the Confraria Vintage Ports. The Confraria Vintage Ports are only made the best vintages and is a blend of the member houses Vintage Ports. During the Master Class we tasted the following Confraria Vintage Ports: 1982, 1994, 2000, 2003, 2011 and 2017.
George Sandeman
Confraria Vintage Ports
The Port Wine Messe focus on providing the opportunity to taste the last declared vintage, this time 2020, but also includes several older vintage ports and special category ports. In general 2020 is a quite good year. It is not classic, but in general it is better than the two previous vintages, 2018 and 2019. Tasting notes of Vintage 2020 that we have tasted so far are available on our Vintage 2020 page.
2020 is a very special year. It is now 45 years since Sten (co-founder of this web site) and his wife fell in love with Vintage port. Every Christmas since then, the family have enjoyed Vintage Port with Stilton cheese – great tradition! Many years have passed by and the two daughters in the family grew older, both getting married to beer and whisky lovers (sighs), none with experience of port wine (sighs again). Sten had at that time only been drinking beer just once in his life and did not fancy it at all. He thought whisky was drinkable and since then we in the family have enjoyed quite some decent whiskies together. The two sons-in-law, Jörgen and Stefan, learned to love Port Wine and in 2011 we started this web site together.
Christmas Ports in the family 2014
Christmas time also resulted in other traditions within the family. The whole family have been celebrating the 23rd of December together for 22 years now (giving the opportunity to celebrate with other family members over the coming days of Christmas), but of course we have often also celebrated the following days of Christmas together.
In 2003 Sten decided that his family, including sons-in-law, should taste some old Vintage Ports on the 23rd of December when the family was celebrating. We have been tasting some quite fantastic port wines since then on our Christmas gatherings and were looking forward to doing the same this year. This Christmas, with the Corona, we were not able to celebrate Christmas together as usual. We hope next Christmas gives us a few more days together so we can drink the Vintage Ports for both 2020 and 2021 together.
Often we tried to taste ports with an age of 100 years. This has been possible for some Vintages even if some of the years are very difficult (for Sten impossible) to find.
2014 December 25: Taylor 1935(bottled by Fearon Block) and Croft 1914(This bottle of Crofts 1914 vintage Port was shipped by pipe and bottled at Chester’s Brewery Co, Ardwick for the manager Mr George Smith Thomson’s personal use. It has not been rebottled./ G. Hoban 1989)
2011 December 23: Hooper 1951 and Cockburn 1911(This bottle has belonged to Jorge Guillermo who was married to one of the Dutch princesses and sold his wine cellar at Christie´s when they divorced, but no label on the bottle, just a Cockburn label around the neck where Cockburn 1911 was written.)
Despite all cancelled tastings, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we managed to hold a Great Tasting of Vintage Port 1985 in our Wine club in Malmö, Sweden in September. 1985 is ranked as the best Vintage in the 1980s and expectations were of course high with. We had managed to collect 59 different Vintage Ports, a quite complete setup with all the big houses represented.
Vintage Port 1985, still quite dark ruby in the colour
At an age of 35 years the Vintage should now show its full potential and it certainly did. There were many wonderful wines and some of them are actually still appearing as young with impressive tannins and great structure. Fonseca was the winner of the tasting. Dow’s and Taylor’s were not so far behind. All three are wonderful today and will remain so for several years.
We got the chance to evaluate the Vintage Ports from this newcomer in the port wine business. Newcomer? Is that true, you might think. Well, most of you, who know your Vintage Ports, and the port wine quintas, have probably heard about or even tasted Quinta da Côrte under the Delaforce label which has been produced since the 1970’s. The last Vintage Port under the Delaforce label was however made in 2004.
Vintage Port 2017 and 2015 from Quinta da Côrte
In 2013 Quinta da Côrte was bought by Philippe Austruy most known for his career in the health care sector, but also owner of Commanderie de Peyrassol in Côtes de Provence and the Château Malescasse in Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux. After restoring both the vineyards and the main buildings the first wine was released in 2013, a Douro red table wine. Today the Quinta, located in the Cima Corgo, in the Douro Valley, is offering visitors wine tastings, dining possibilities and a guest accommodation.
Together with the Quinta the wine stock in the cellars were included and this made it possible to also start producing and selling port wine. Currently the port wine portfolio is made up of a 10 years Tawny, a 20 years Tawny, LBV’s from 2014 and 2015 and Vintage Ports from 2015 and 2017.
Dark nice ruby colour.
Back to the Vintage Ports. The first Vintage Port under the new management, and from wine maker Marta Casanova, was the 2015 Vintage Port. This is today still very young and dark ruby in colour. The bouquet provides a rich fruity and powerful touch of dark berries like mulberries, blueberries, black currant and dark cherries. Still of course young in taste with loads of dark berries and massive but lovely tannins. Although we like it today, this would definitively improve even more with some years in the cellar.
The 2017 is the latest Vintage Port from the Quinta. The style is recognized, with very dark ruby colour and dark berries in the bouquet. This time the bouquet is accomplished with some peppery notes and fresh herbal notes. The Port is very fresh in the mouth and provides a long very balanced taste with soft but noticeable tannins. The tannins appear a bit more rounded than in the 2015 but there is definitely ageing potential for this youngster as well.
We have had a marvelous month of November. It started with the Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen, which we’ve already written about, and ended with the Port Wine Fair in Leverkusen, Germany organized by Axel Probst and Christoffer Pfaff, World of Port.
Grape specific 1982 Ramos Pinto
Ramos Pinto had a Master Class tasting focusing on Tawny in Copenhagen (read about it here). In Leverkusen we once again had the great pleasure of meeting Ana Rosas from Ramos Pinto. This time the focus was on Vintage Ports and the importance of the different grape varieties used. Ramos Pinto has always been one of the companies leading the research on grape varietals. Joao Nicolau de Almeida, former winemaker at the company started to plant grape varieties separate, something that was not common at that time, and also bottled single variety wines from different vintages. All to better understand how the different grape varieties contribute to the final blend. These single varietal bottles are not for sale, they are only used for Ramos Pinto’s internal reference. Remember that Vintage Port is bottled already when two to three years old and then the final blend must already be made. So it was very interesting to get the opportunity to taste some of these single varietal bottles of Barroca, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Roriz from 1982 together with the released 1982 Vintage Port.
This wonderful Master Class was rounded off by a magical white port from 1884, directly from Ramos Pinto’s cellars!
Porto Branco 1884
The Port Wine Fair in Leverkusen is focusing on the latest Vintage and this year we tasted about 60 different Vintage Ports from 2017 and we have now tasted more than 70 different 2017 Vintage Ports, a very great vintage indeed. Some of us are unfortunately too old to have the opportunity to drink this memorable vintage once it is matured, many years from now. We think there are too many houses with incredible vintages this year to be mentioned them, so just buy your favorite producers of the vintage and enjoy it. Our tasting notes are as always available. Check out all the 2017 Vintages we have tasted here. Last time in history seeing three consecutive such great vintage years as 2015, 2016 and 2017 was 1820, 1821 and 1822 if we remember correctly.
Carlos Agrello, Quinta do Noval
Now we are looking forward to Christmas, when we usually drink very old
vintages (often > 100 years old). That will be nice indeed!
