Croft 2003 - the first Croft vintage to be foot-trodden. .

[Phil Wilkins]

vintage since the vintage 1963 . . apparently and according to Decanter.

Anyone know why this is the case & what exactly does the “foot-treading” addition mean to the actual finished wine?

[NickA]

The way I read your question I'd say a couple of corn plasters!

But seriously, I think it means supple tannins and good extraction without bitterness had the pips been crushed etc...i.e. a better crushing and maceration process.

[Roy Hersh]

Along with a mini vertical of Croft and a handful of other VPs tonight, I had the 2003 Taylor, Croft, Fonseca and Delaforce. Unfortunately, the Croft was corked. :twisted:

I hate when that happens. Fortunately, our '63, '66 and 1970 were all singing. Tasting notes to follow.

[Al B.]

Roy - I take note of the fact that you had the Croft mini vertical 63-70 and will try to avoid duplicating it on November 6th!

Alex

[Tom Archer]

From the mid sixties on, there was a growing enthusiasm for mechanisation, and a simple belief that foot treading was an anachronism.

As recently as the mid-nineties, some commentators were saying that the lagares would soon be obsolete. However, it was becoming increasingly apparent that those who trod by foot were out-classing those who had mechanised.

Some believe it is only a matter of perfecting the mechanisation method, and are still tinkering around, but most of the serious contenders in the VP market are foot treading again.

I have heard that the treaders are increasingly non-Portuguese, and that plane loads of British gap-year students are enjoying a working holiday at this time of year!

[Frederick Blais]

The Symington have work a lot with mecanisation recently trying to emulate the action of a human foot with sillicon proteses. They may have well found a good solution because the Graham 2000 contains 50% juice from mecanisation treading. Yet it is one of the biggest success in 2000.

[Roy Hersh]

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Just back from a tasting and 2 Ports for dessert. Anyway, there are plenty of Port producers and Shippers that do employ human foot treading. Just about all did it that way until the late '60s and early '70s and only a few changed to other methods.

Today, there are still lots of companies that do tread their vintage Ports in lagares with the use of the human foot. In 1998, the Symington family was the very first to produce a VP (1998 Malvedos) utilizing robotics to do the grape treading. In 2000, the Graham's Vintage Port was produced by blending in the wines made using these robotics AND also the granite lagares that still allowed for human foot treading that were directly next to the new stainless steel robotic lagares.

Quinta do Noval and The Fladgate Partnership have both since developed robotics for their grape crushing. But both also do traditional human treading as well for their Vintage Ports. Most small producers do use the lagares today and more do than don't although this is quickly changing as the cost of labor, but moreso, the supply of capable and willing people to do the work in the lagares is decreasing with each successive harvest. Nowadays, immigrants are given the hard jobs of grape picking and also lagar work. THey are mostly brought in from Northern Africa though, not UK students.

The human foot gently extracts the maximum color and tannins from the grapes and this is a tried and true method over the past 3+ centuries in the Douro.