What is your view of the "longevity" of 1977 Vintage Ports?

[Roy Hersh]

There seems to be a disagreement amongst the pundits ... whether the 1977s as a group (yes, I realize it is really difficult to lump a bunch of Shippers VPs from one vintage into a tidy little package like I'm doing here) are going to hold on for the long haul.

So whether you would like to generalize about the vintage as a whole or break it down by individual Shipper ... where do you think the 1977s are heading? Will they make for old bones and if so ... does that mean another ten years, twenty, thirty or more? Your opinons are appreciated!

[Tom Archer]

The speed with which the '77's are losing colour is quite alarming, and the fact that this seems to be happening across the board, with no obvious exceptions, deserves an explanation.

My suspicion is that this is at least in part the consequence of blends lacking juice from Touriga Nacional grapes.

This has never been the most widely planted vine, on account of it's low yield, (although clonal selecton has now gone some way to address that problem) and the pursuit of quantity at the expense of quality resulted in there being just one Touriga Nacional vine in every thousand by the end of the 1970's.

If this is correct, then a cloud hangs over the future of the subsequent vintages.

According to Mayson, 2% of vines are now Touriga Nacionals - twenty times as many.

What I am not clear about, is when the re-instatement of this vine produced enough juice to bolster the vintage lots.

Tom

[Moses Botbol]

'77 is no '70 or maybe even '66 but probably won't out live either. Perhaps the Taylor '77 has the most life out what I have tried, but I think there's more hoopla with '77 than need be. Will '85 equal '77 in greatness in the future?

Any '77 should be considered ready to drink right now. Fonseca and Taylor will hold for a while, but why bother?

[Andy Velebil]

Its hard to lump them all into one generic group, but this is something that I've noticed with a more than average group.

The 77's seem to fall into two very distinct categories, stellar juice that will last many more decades while continuing to get better and those that while maybe not quite at peak yet, won't get dramatically better with time, so there is no reason to not start drinking them.

The previous, such as the Taylor, is still a solid dark monster that has plenty of life left ahead. Yet, a good number of others seem to be solid VP's, but not great. I'll agree somewhat with Tom, they seem to be a little lighter in color than they should be for only 30 years. I do disagree though with "no obvious exceptions" as there are several that still have great color depth (taylor, fonseca, Gould Campbell, Smith Woodhouse, etc). However, I think 1970 produced a much better across-the-board vintage than 1977.

I'd love to find out why that was and have often wondered if it was the older winemakers getting tired as they got older. If I'm not mystaken, the mid-late 70's saw many of the old winemakers/master blenders nearing the end of their careers. Look at the 1980's as an example of a generally poor decade. With some exceptions, and to again generalize, there were more duds than fireworks during the 80's. Then when the younger winemakers took over in the late 80's to early 90's we've had stellar juice from then on.

[Moses Botbol]

I do disagree though with "no obvious exceptions" as there are several that still have great color depth (Taylor, Fonseca, Gould Campbell, Smith Woodhouse, etc). However, I think 1970 produced a much better across-the-board vintage than 1977.

Would have to agree with those four.

[Tom Archer]

Would have to agree with those four

At the Utrecht '77 horizontal earlier this summer. I was struck by the degree to which these top '77's had lost colour and performance, compared to my previous recollections of them. The GC was the only one to have any real youth left in its appearance, and even that was very translucent in the glass (it was also slightly corked).

The theory about the interregnum amongst the wine makers is an interesting point.

i'm beginning to think of the period between 1970 and 1991 as the 'dark ages' - not least on account of it marking the peak of the irritating practice of putting VP in bottles that are too dark to check the levels - a practice I would love to see outlawed..

Tom

[Moses Botbol]

Would have to agree with those four

i'm beginning to think of the period between 1970 and 1991 as the 'dark ages' - not least on account of it marking the peak of the irritating practice of putting VP in bottles that are too dark to check the levels - a practice I would love to see outlawed..

Tom

May I suggest a SureFire flashlight then? 1980 and 1985 were great vintages. Why did they change to dark bottles?

[Tom Archer]

May I suggest a SureFire flashlight then?

I've even tried lasers!

Best way I know is to hold the bottle close to an ordinary filiament light bulb that has a clear glass bulb (not frosted).

I wonder whether a small ultrasonic transducer might be able to differentiate between a filled and unfilled neck?

1980 and 1985 were great vintages.

Not forgetting '83..

Why did they change to dark bottles?

I don't know. It may have been a pedantic interpretation of IVDP rules, which I believe specified 'dark' bottles.

My oldest wholly opaque bottle is an Oporto bottled Sandeman '63, while the youngest are some Symington stable bottles from 2000, although they are bit variable - you can see through some, but not others.

I've not seen any blackouts from 2003 yet, so I'm hoping they're history now.

Tom

[Andy Velebil]

At the Utrecht '77 horizontal earlier this summer. I was struck by the degree to which these top '77's had lost colour and performance, compared to my previous recollections of them

Tom,

Thats surprising, as all the top 4 I've had in the past year have had exceptionally dark color extraction and were very youthful still.


as for the dark bottles, even in the older days most Oporto bottled VPs were in dark glass, of course there are some exceptions. The dark glass is used to help retard light from damaging the Port. It is a proven fact that light transmission through wine/beer/Port glass can affect the liquid inside. The darker the glass the more harmful light waves are prevented from passing through. If my memory serves me correctly, it was Paul Symmington that stated this a couple of years ago on the Harvest Trip. I've also been told the same thing from a large beer brewery here in the US.

[Moses Botbol]

The dark glass is used to help retard light from damaging the Port. It is a proven fact that light transmission through wine/beer/Port glass can affect the liquid inside. The darker the glass the more harmful light waves are prevented from passing through.

That is well known that dark glass protects wine, beer, etc... Then why isn't Petrus and the like in black glass?

The last 77's that did not live up their storied greatness (of the vintage being excellent) I tried were Grahams and Croft. It's hard to find a lousy vintage of Grahams, but if I did... the '77 would be closer than further to one of their worst vintages. A

Why is that.

As for the Croft, I am going on memory and could be wrong... Anyone had Croft 77 recently?

[Roy Hersh]

I agree with Andy on most of what he has said about 1977s (although I don't believe it to be accurate about the winemaker issue with '77 in particular). That said, I would also add Dow to that list. Every time I have the Dow 1977 (almost always, but one exception) I have also found it to be particularly extracted to this point in time. The Gould Campbell and Smith Woodhouse are about as dark as any besides Taylor. I have had a lot of variation in color with the last half dozen Fonseca '77s I've had (all since 2006). Some were dark and more than half were quite light in depth of color.

Moses asked about the 1977 Croft. I had it last on Oct. 29th of 2007 and wrote this about the color:

"Medium ruby center with an orange/pink edge."

I hope to see more opinions about the '77s before I add my own at some point.

[SEAN C.]

I think both the Taylor and Fonseca are not ready to drink yet and are holding up very well. I would be surprised if these don't go the "long haul". It will be interesting to see how these open up in the next 10 years and whether or not they will be equal to or better than the '66's or 1970's. I doubt they will, but some do have the potential to be great. Out of all the 1977's I've had the Taylor has the most potential followed by Fonseca, Dow, Gould Campbell, Warre, and MAYBE Graham (if it starts to turn around).

[Marc J.]

From my experience Taylor '77 is holding up much better than the rest of the '77s. Fonseca started out great but it seems to be fading at an alarming rate. Many of the other '77s are also looking remarkably tired and losing color rather quickly. Croft, Graham and Warre all seems to be aging much more quiclky than what would normally be anticipated from such a highly regarded vintage.

Marc

[Ronald Wortel]

What strikes me most about the 1977 vintage is that the wines are remarkably inconsistent. Dow can be extremely dark and full of promise, but the bottle we had in Utrecht last July was very light and completely secondary. Fonseca can be top of the vintage, but also dull and tired. Taylor is usually rather consistent, but the bottle in Utrecht didn't show well. Normally I would blame this on different bottles, different storage history etc, but I've also seen enormous variation with bottles that were from the same lot. At the 1970-1977 offline at BBR in 2005, there was an incredible difference between two bottles of Fonseca 1977, both sourced from BBR.

A general problem seems to be that many are indeed losing their colour and fruit rapidly. But, as LadyR is a child of 1977, we own a lot and will surely keep some bottles for a long time. We'll see how they keep up!

[Derek T.]

Ronnie has hit on an interesting point about this vintage in that it seems to have a higher than average instance of bottle variation. It is also interesting to note that it was the first true classic vintage (ignoring the sub-par 1975) to be entirely bottled in Oporto.

As far as I am aware 1977 was a particularly large vintage in terms of volume and came a full 14 years after what at that time would have been considered the last stellar vintage (1963). Is it possible that the major shippers stretched the top quality juice too far in the blend to produce enormous volumes or, worse still, shipped wines of varying quality under the same brand?

[Andy Velebil]

Don't forget about 1970, which was highly regarded at the time.

[Derek T.]

Don't forget about 1970, which was highly regarded at the time.

I wasn't forgetting it. It's just that, like 1966, it lived in the shadow of 1963 and then as far as I can tell from reading about it, 1977 was at the time considered to be superior to 1970. Time seems to be presenting the same problem to the 1977v1970 debate as it is to that of 1963v1966.

[Andy Velebil]

Comparing 1970 & 1977 to '63 and '66 is a good analogy. Both started out as great VP's then, with some exceptions, one really seemed to nose dive compared to the other.

Ronnie has hit on an interesting point about this vintage in that it seems to have a higher than average instance of bottle variation.

I agree, there seems to be an awefull lot of bottle variation that has cropped up in recent years with the 77's.

I think a good "Question for the Trade" would be.... In the mid 1970's with electricity coming to the Quintas in the Douro and with regulation changes that mandated all Port be bottled in Portugal, did that have an effect on the overall quality of the VP's in the mid to late '70s? Were Port companies really ready for such a dramatic change in a relatively short time and what, if anything, did they do to prepare for processing in-house such a large volume of VP?

[Shawn Denkler]

1977 was the first vintage that I tasted extensively as young port at release. They seemed powerful and tannic, a bit overwhelming at the time. Now after decades of trying new vintage port they still are overwhelming and difficult to evaluate when young. I get a general impression and leave it at that. Port goes up in price initially, but levels off and I feel it is reasonable in price at ten to fifteen years old. Then the ports are much easier to taste and evaluate, and I buy my favorites then.

Since 1977 was considered a classic vintage like 1963, I voted with my pocketbook and always bought 1970s which I felt were excellent yet more reasonable in price. Time has agreed with my choice and 1970 has moved up in its vintage rating while 1977 has gone down.

1970 was a much higher yielding vintage than 1977. I think critics tend to put to much emphasis on yield in their ratings. I feel 1927 is the best vintage of the century by far, yet the yields were extremely high. In the Douro yields are so low by world standards that a big Douro vintage is still relatively low yielding.

Rating young wines and certainly vintage port is difficult. Time has now shown that the “lesser” vintages of 1966 and 1970 have proven to be better than the “classic” 1963 and 1977 ports. Bordeaux vintages have fooled many critics as well with unpredictable aging.

Wine is a very complex beverage chemically. Its chemicals and their interactions are still not very well understood. “Tannin” is a very complex class of chemicals, not just one chemical. Many different types of tannins are in wine. Color and retention of color has much to do with the type of tannin present as well. “Tannin” and color plays a big part in our evaluation of wine, so it is easy to be fooled.

The 1977 vintage fooled us. Since I was young and did not know any better I believed the critics. I re-tasted the vintage after ten years. So I was surprised how forward the Dow was at a young age, and that the Graham was fairly drinkable as well. The Fonseca was magnificent with tons of rich silky fruit, but did not have the backbone I expected. It too was quite forward. Over the years I continued to feel they were maturing early, and continued to buy more 1970s which had a far better price to quality ratio.

I have very few 1977s in my cellar now and have tried few recently. Other people have commented in the forum about substantial bottle variation in the vintage. I do not know about variation in the 1977s, but have drunk a fair amount of 1985s recently, and find great bottle variation in that vintage. This bottle variation in several vintages is very puzzling. Oporto bottling was supposed to stop this variation. Bottle variation is expected in dealing with old wine, but I am seeing much more than expected. One explanation could be the size of the lot bottled. A winery may not have a tank big enough to bottle the whole vintage, so several lots are bottled. Today the port houses probably have bigger tanks than they had previously, resulting in less vintage variation than 1985 or 1977 when Oporto bottling was relatively new.

[Marco D.]

Shawn: Excellent and well thought-out post!

I certainly hope the critics are not fooled by the modern day great vintages (1994, 2003...). Hopefully viticulture, winemaking practices, the quality of aguardente, etc have progressed to the point where we get less surprises.