2018 in Douro

[Roy Hersh]

This past winter and especially the shortened spring were very challenging in the Douro, making a 4th consecutive "great harvest" look next to impossible. And now this: temperatures are already @ 47 degree in the Douro and expected to hit and possibly surpass 50 degrees in the coming days. That is close to 125 F.

A balanced growing season will never be confused with the vintage of 2018. Who knows?

[Andy Velebil]

At this stage a short heat spike probably won't hurt as the vines simply shut down. The real issue is if they lacked water already, canopy management, and if they start to raisin due to an extended heat spike. To mention just a few possible problems. Of course, vineyard aspect and location will also come into play, is it cooling down at night, the age of the vine, etc. Lots of variables.

[Luc Gauthier]

Guess that's what makes the Douro so special

[Luc Gauthier]

Vintage port at 47c

[Eric Menchen]

Time to make Madeira, in the Douro.

[Luc Gauthier]

Sadly we don't get any quality Madeira in Montréal

[Luc Gauthier]

Plenty of rainwater

[Luc Gauthier]

Although we do get Malmsey 10 yr old and Enriques 5 yr old

[Thomas V]

Fingers cross'd for the 2018 VP season as it is the birth year of my son.

I'd very much hope to be able to lay down some cases of Noval & Vesuvio. I will be able to check in first hand as I will be visiting both quintas the first week of September. Might even get to do some treading at Vesuvio and sneak a taste of the must.

[Eric Menchen]

I've seen two Facebook posts from Portugal with photos of "sunburned" grapes, shriveled up and looking a little like botrytus produce. The first was from Adega de Monção, at the north end of the country; the second from the Associação de Viticultores de Alenquer, which is a little north of Lisbon.

[Frederick Blais]

Here is my take on the harvest. I was 2 months in Portugal this spring and then 2,5 months this summer and fall. This comment represent my own opinion, from what I've seen, heard and taste.

Spring was ultra wet! For almost 3 months, it was rainy and cloudy in the Douro. It was also colder than average, delaying the budding by a good 2 weeks. A few big hail storms again were a problem destroying a lot of vineyards in the Pinhao area. Some were fortunate enough to get a 2nd budding. Then summer arrived without a proper spring transition. With all the humidity and the sudden heat, spraying was widely used in a good amount. It was like 2016, but even worse. Even with good dose of herbicide, herbs was growing strong showing early problems in the vineyards. To show how bad it was with the rain, there are numerous erosion issues that left permanent wholes in the vineyards, streets that were yet to be repaired. I've never seen parts of a street been taken away before in the Douro.

With all the water available, 2018 was looking promising for a quantity crop. Then early August, a massive heat wave attacked Europe. Hot winds from Sahara invaded the regions bringing temperature over 50 Celcius in many valleys of the Douro. It is believed that between 40-50% of the crop was lost in 3 days. I've seen a screen shot of thermometer at 53 Celcius at Roeda. The whites had more dammage than reds, but still, some red producers I've met lost 90% of their harvest.

Douro is well built to support high temperature, the problem was the timing, right at veraison(color change) time. The berries were small, unprotected for such an attack, as the vines shut down, the small berries dessicated and were reduced to dust.

With that sudden lost of grapes, it was a race to buy more grapes to fill in the lost. It was dramatic, as price for some parcells went 2-3 times higher than usual. Also some farmers that were selling their grapes to the same producer for generations were tempted to sell to others for highest bidder.

If it was not enough, more rain arrived in early September. There were some heavy thunderstorm between Vila Real and Lamego. The highway A24 was closed due to the heavy rain. Fortunately enough, those rain episodes did not affect the whole Douro and were mostly located around the Baixo Corgo. This caused the mildew and black rot problems to start early, again the whites got most of the dammage.

Then September resumed with high temperature and sunny days. It followed until the first week of October. Temperature for most days of September were ranging between 35 and 40, early October was flirting with 30 as well. Nights remained quite hot for the season too. Those higher than average temperature were more than welcome for Port grapes as the sugar was struggling to arrive into the berries.

This last point is what sum up for me the 2018 season, lazy vines due to the huge amount of water that was delivered. The vine did not concentrate the sugar, berries were getting proper phenolic ripeness, thick skins, acidity dropping, while the sugar remained low. It was the word in the Douro in mid-September :''we are waiting for the sugar to arrive''.

After the first week of October, more rain arrived, cold weather settled. People were stressed to complete the harvest before the 11th, before the rain and the rot problem getting worst.

With the high amount of rain, combined with the summer heat wave, Douro delivered big berries with thick skin, low sugar and acidity and much less complexity than 2017. You could literally chew the skin and feel it crunch. It is the first time I withness this in the Douro. It was a tough year for Rosé! Wines had too easily color and tannins.

As usual, there are always valleys, vineyards that will show well. There are no doubts some producers will do great, but like 2016, I did not see the conditions for a general declaration. I'll not get into more details about this :)

This report mostly represent my feeling of the Baixo Corgo and Cima Corgo, I did not get a lot of information from Douro Superior, but this could be a year were it can shine as this extra water could be beneficial for more balanced and fresh wines.

Fred

[Andy Velebil]

Here's Paul Symington's annual, and last, vintage recap. For those who haven't heard the news yet, Paul will be stepping down later this year and retiring as Co-CEO of the Symington Family Estates. Paul's lively and bluntly honest harvest recaps will surely be missed.

Douro Harvest Report
2018
The End of the Longest Drought

We assumed that we would revert to a normal year after the driest ever growing-season in 2017, but we were wrong, and the long drought continued through to March 2018. The Douro had endured 20 consecutive months with well below average rainfall.

Our pleading to the weather gods was clearly overdone as the nearly two-year ‘seca’ ended abruptly with heavy rains in March, April and May. These fantastically wet months delivered more than double the normal rainfall and culminated in a major storm on the evening of Monday 28th May. In the Pinhão area, 90mm of rain fell in less than 2 hours, with some localised but devastating hail. No soil can absorb this quantity of water, especially our steep hillside vineyards, and erosion caused severe damage. Incredibly, olive trees were scarred by the stones hurled against them by the gushing water as it headed downhill to the river. This major gale was heart-breaking, and the wise old Douro caseiros (vineyard foremen) shook their heads in despair.

Heavy spring rain is always a challenge as we go through the delicate bud break and later flowering, and inevitably this watery spring resulted in substantial losses. Vineyard work was intense and costly this year and farmers who were a few hours late in their treatments lost their entire crop. It is impossible to ignore the fact that 16,890 farmers in the Douro have less than 2 hectares of vines each and yet they represent 23% of the region’s vineyards. Most of these small holdings are notoriously underequipped and their future is increasingly doubtful as their children flock to the cities to find easier work.

Bud break was three weeks behind normal because of the wet and cool spring and the pintor (the painter) arrived two weeks later than average. Finally, a more normal weather pattern emerged in July with average temperatures and no relevant rainfall. The vineyards that survived the strange and challenging lead-in to the final furlong were looking magnificent through a hot August, clearly benefiting from good moisture in the soil.

The indispensable long-term weather forecast (unavailable to our ancestors) predicted fine weather through to October, and this proved entirely accurate, giving adequate time to allow the grapes to reach full maturity. We felt by now that we had truly earned a calm and pleasant harvest; September was rather hotter than we would have liked, with the monthly average 3.4˚C higher than normal, but lovely blue skies persisted throughout. The warm days advanced grape maturation faster than expected and cooling the musts in the lagares was almost always necessary for each ferment.

Yields were absurdly low in 2018, with many of our vineyards producing 40% less than average. There are few that are less than 25% down on the norm. This was the second year in a row with dramatically low production and there was a desperate scramble for grapes, particularly from those with few vineyards. Prices for Douro wine grapes rocketed upwards, which is probably a very good thing, certainly for the farmers who have had a torrid few years. Hopefully the higher cost of grapes will correct the ridiculously cheap retail prices of some Douro wines that are seriously damaging the future of our region, putting us on a par with the world’s low-cost and high-yielding flat vineyards.

Despite (and in part because of) the incredibly low yields we have made some excellent Ports and Douro wines in 2018. The Touriga Franca has been particularly good, having clearly enjoyed the hot final ripening period, and has delivered wonderful colour and particularly lifted aromas. The latter is not a normal characteristic of Franca but it will be very noticeable in our wines this year.
It is somewhat ironic that the many tens of thousands of tourists who have now discovered the unique charm of Porto as well as the extraordinary beauty of the Douro, are fast drawing people into the hospitality industry, thereby creating a severe labour shortage in the very same vineyards that they so admire. The Douro, the world’s most challenging mountain vineyard, is the last major wine region that is entirely picked by hand due to the incredibly steep vineyards. This is clearly not sustainable, and grapes will remain on the vines unless an alternative is found.

For too long, too many people have viewed the Douro as a mysterious, remote but beautiful time warp where Port and Douro wines can be made cheaply, dependent on a distorted regulatory system, low-wages and plentiful labour. The last two harvests have shown that change is imperative if the unique Port and Douro wines from our low-yielding indigenous vines and our extraordinary schist soils, can continue to be made.

Paul Symington
17-10-18

[Andy Velebil]

Here's my short take from spending almost 2 weeks up river at various properties from Regua to the far eastern Douro Superior area. I won't recap in detail what Fred has already mentioned, just what I saw in the fields and a summation from many winemakers/viticulturists.

The high water levels really caused issues, as mentioned. The heat as well. There was a ton of raisining of the grapes within grape bunches. That was pretty consistent through all properties I was at. If you had expensive destemmers that could remove the good grapes and leave the raisined ones behind you were better off. But between grapes lacking in phenological ripeness and raisined ones, there was a ton of sorting being done. This was compounded by a serious shortage of seasonal workers, which most producers suffered from in some form. One had almost a full 2/3 less workers than normal. So on top of the grape issues, it comes down to harvesting the grapes in the best condition first and then whatever else one could get to later. There wasn't the usual super happiness during vintage there is in better years. My take is this will be a good year to replenish stocks for the middle and lower tier Ports. Of course, the Douro is large and, except in the rare worst of the worst years, there always is some very good things made. Albeit in small amounts.

I also saw for the first time a joint IVDP and Police checkpoint. They were checking trucks carrying grapes and their paperwork in Regua to ensure what one was carrying was proper. *Any load of grapes must have the accompanying paperwork with it or one could be in big trouble.


EDIT/RANT: Tourism in the Douro is out of control. Those big river boats are a royal pain in the ass that does nothing to help the local economy. Other than the taxi's are now so busy it's almost impossible to get one in Pinhao without booking days ahead of time. All those boats do is drop people off who clog everything without actually buying much of anything and some other issues as well. The powers that be need to step in and curtail the high volume of river boats.

[Will W.]

I also saw for the first time a joint IVDP and Police checkpoint. They were checking trucks carrying grapes and their paperwork in Regua to ensure what one was carrying was proper. *Any load of grapes must have the accompanying paperwork with it or one could be in big trouble.

Andy - Could you explain in a bit more detail what these checks are trying to determine, and why?

[Andy Velebil]

I also saw for the first time a joint IVDP and Police checkpoint. They were checking trucks carrying grapes and their paperwork in Regua to ensure what one was carrying was proper. *Any load of grapes must have the accompanying paperwork with it or one could be in big trouble.

Andy - Could you explain in a bit more detail what these checks are trying to determine, and why?

Making sure what is being carried is what the driver says it is. In other words, making sure grapes from other areas aren’t being smuggled in.


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