2008 FTLOP PORT HARVEST TOUR - BLOG

[Roy Hersh]

Instead of using the FTLOP Homepage Blog area, I will post updates in this particular thread. Last night I had a casual evening shopping around town and wound up at Vinologia. After an hour or two, Stewart and Andy showed up, having just arrived in Portugal.

Fortunately, my trip here was mostly uneventful and all luggage arrived as planned. No small feat. Jay P. who was to be on my flight here from Newark, was delayed (I also had a 3 hour delay) due to weather and missed his connection. Fortunately he will be arriving this a.m.

So at Vinologia, just a warm up ... we had a great time and talking to many from Netherlands, France, Australia and one gent from the UK approached and asked if I was Roy Hersh from For The Love Of Port. Very funny and humbling actually. Anyway, the place was rocking and everyone in the place was talking together and sharing Ports. Afterwards, the 3 of us, took a bottle of 1992 Quevedo Colheita and 3 glasses to polish off alongside the Douro river under the Bridge. We then went to a late night restaurant and got back to the hotel at 4 a.m. That was the pre-pre-warm up for the tour.

Today we are headed to Kopke to have 3 mini-horizontals of Colheita. Each vintage will have 3-5 Colheitas from different houses. Then we head to dinner of roast suckling (no relation to James I hope) pig accompanied by three Douro wines and then on to Vinologia for a dozen Ports and a few surprise bottlings too.

Mario joins us tomorrow ... he is afraid of my Sunday plans ... and the tour gets started in earnest, on Monday a.m.

More to follow!

[David Spriggs]

Thanks Roy! I wish I was there! Mario has reason to be afraid... you guys are just starting and not even giving your livers the day off... it's a long road ahead.

-Dave-

[Eric Ifune]

Roy,
Looking forward to your updates. Hope you're feeling well.

[Andy Velebil]

great time sat and sun. Drinking under the bridge until 4am with the fishermen was a blast. Though I did over sleep a tax but met the group just in time. Kopke and vinalogia was a blast. Excited about today. More
Later.

[Tom Archer]

The weather forecast for the coming week could hardly be better - both for grapes and tourists..

Meanwhile a major storm is headed towards the UK, ETA Sunday. Hopefully it won't veer south..

Tom

[Glenn E.]

Bah! Don't know how I missed you guys, I was at Vinologia on Saturday night looking for you at about 8:30. You must have showed up later... when my family and I showed up the place was completely full and we were turned away. So instead we shared a flight of 20-yr old Tawnies in the bar at the Pestana before heading to bed.

The weather last week was pretty good all around except for some rain early in the week in the Pinhao area. It didn't rain all day, though, so we were able to tour several wineries in the afternoons and had a great time.

[Roy Hersh]

Recap so far:

Saturday night I was at Vinologia for about an hour or two and in comes Stewart and Andy. We left at 1 a.m. after many hours ... I was there around 9 p.m. ... and after about 8 various Ports we took a bottle of 1992 under the main bridge in Porto (Dom Joao) walked down to where some guys were fishing and with nice but small glasses polished off the bottle. WE headed for cheeseburgers and beer at around 4 a.m. we arrived back at the hotel.

Sunday, unofficial day of Port decadence. We began at Kopke and had a great Colheita tasting of a dozen wines. First we had a stellar white wine ... selling for only 5 Euros, WOW!!!! Next 2 Douro reds. Then we had a bunch of each > some 1979s, 1966s, 1952s and finally 1937s all from the various Sogevinus houses of Kopke, Burmester, Barros etc. Great tasting! We headed to Vinologiaºs restaurant for dinner of roast Suckling Pig and then finished off the night with a slew of a dozen great Ports at Vinologia until 1 something.

Today (Mon.) we started off at Ferreira and had a spectacular tasting including Barca Velha, a very solid lineup of older vintage Ports, a great tour of some of the oldest Ports remaining in Gaia cellars and then the 2007 Vintage Port. Lunch outdoors on the river was fun. We then headed to Fonseca (Fladgate HQ) and one stunning tasting. Letºs see what I can remember. 1970, 1985 and 1994 Fonseca. 1977, 1985 and 1994 Taylor. 1977 and 1991 Croft, plus pink Croft which Andy really liked and gave 84 points.

Tonight we blew the doors off our guestºs with a night at the FActory House with Adrian and Natasha Bridge, Paul Symington and the owner of Berry Bros. & Rudd (Mr. Berry). We had nice wines, great and informative talks late into the night and an enjoyable 20 year old Fonseca that was followed by a pristine Magnum of 1970 Taylor that we all really loved ... coming darn close to the 1970 Fonseca ... which is saying a mouthful!!!

Tomorrow we have some verticals planned and another "first" that no other group has ever experienced. Should be a blast. Will be back to report more. It is hot and beautiful in Porto and every bit as great in the Douro. The effects of the rain have been 100% negated and the hot weather has brought the grapes to their phenolic ripeness and folks are very optimistic. WEºll see soon enough.

Reporting from Porto.

[Derek T.]

It is hot and beautiful in Porto and every bit as great in the Douro. The effects of the rain have been 100% negated and the hot weather has brought the grapes to their phenolic ripeness and folks are very optimistic.

Is Mr Hersh predicting back to back classic declarations from the major shippers? - Uncle Tom will be pleased

Glad to hear you guys are having fun. I hope Julian is ensuring that all the Americans are using appropriate grammar, punctuation and the correct knife and fork at dinner :devil:

Derek

[David Spriggs]

Just awesome! I can just imagine it all.
-Dave-

[Frederick Blais]

Great news!!! I just had some 74 Kopke tonight to join the group... from Canada. I always said I was not a fan of Kopke but this is definitively the best Kopke I had so far.

Got a short email today that in the Douro it is very nice weather after the 2 days of rain last week. Harvest is looking very healthy and a few wineries at working at full capacity at the moment.

[Tom Archer]

All the information and forecasts I can get hold of points to a perfect conclusion to the harvest.

Sub-tropical storm Laura is set to either blast the UK (if you believe the US forecast) or Iceland (if you believe the UK Met office) next weekend. There is little chance of it veering south.

Enjoy!

Tom

[Andy Velebil]

a great verticle of Dow at the Grahame lodge. Loved it. Then we ran into a spell with some corks.....
Must run to get ready for dinner.

[Eric Ifune]

WOW!

[Marco D.]

A night at the Factory House?!?! Amazing!

[Tom Archer]

The fine weather is currently forecast to come to a soggy end on Monday, with continued rain thereafter..

..how far advanced is the port harvest now?

Tom

[Frederick Blais]

A night at the Factory House?!?! Amazing!

I've seen the set up of the dining room and desert room, this is a very rare treat! I hope you have been allowed to get some pics for us this time!

[Tom Archer]

From text messages received, it would seem that the harvest is effectively complete at the top quintas, although some have had issues with manpower shortages.

No information at this point on baume levels or any first impressions of the musts

Tom

[Roy Hersh]

Now back to reality.

FIrst and foremost, the harvest is NOT done as of yet, even in the Douro Superior some picking was still taking place today when we were at Quinta do Vale Meao and also at Vesuvio. Grapes are in great shape. No rain forecast so far but harvest should be done sometime next week in the Cima Corgo.

Crasto still had lots of grapes left to pick. Tomorrow we'll be at Quinta do Noval and Quinta do Tedo, both of which are still picking Port grapes.

We've done a Dow vertical, but only back to 1970 with some great bottles and both Paul and Johnny Symington present in addition to Mr. Berry of Berry Bros. & Rudd. A great time was had by all and very educational to say the least. We then went to Amorim to learn about corks and of course what the heck the industry is doing to prevent TCA. I was pretty straightforward about "zero tolerance" and when I felt we were getting the runaround asked the woman in charge: "So which do you think will come first, finding the cure to cancer or the cork industry finding a way to negate TCA?" Much more to this funny story ... but no time at the moment.

Vale Meao was fantastic and both Francisco and his son Xito spent most of the day with our group showing us around the vineyards, the production areas as well as holding a fine tasting of Port and Douro wines. We got to try four 2007s from various lots of their VP, as well as cask samples of 2008 that had just been vinified. It was a real eye opener for many in our group.

At Vesuvio, the vertical was fabulous, plus we got to try two Vesuvio table wines (reg. plus reserva) that were a lot of fun, from 2007.

All in all, it seems that 2007 is pretty much a lock for being a general declaration "unofficially" of course. However, 2008 Douro wines are looking very solid and if it was not for such greatness last year, there would be a 2008 declaration of Port too. Trust me that I asked the Symington's and Adrian Bridge ... very directly, why it is that the two British family owned operations would not declare back to back vintages solely based on some old tradition (which I respect in most cases). The answers are long and I'll probably go into this in greater detail when time permits.

[Tom Archer]

All in all, it seems that 2007 is pretty much a lock for being a general declaration "unofficially" of course.

Economics permitting..

Over the years, several declarable years have been passed over due to economic difficulties in the principal markets, most notably 1931.

The last declaration to be made during an economic downturn was when the '80 vintage was declared in 1982, when the US economy suffered a brief recession and the UK economy narrowly avoided one.

Sales, I believe, were pretty dismal, evidenced by a lack of stock on the secondary market, and continuing ex. cellars releases to the supermarkets.

It would be very optimistic to hope that the present upset will be less severe than that of '82, and senior figures are already describing it as the worst since 1929.

With little evidence to suggest that stocks from previous declared years are running low, I reckon, irrespective of quality, that they will probably give '07 a miss.

Tom

[David Spriggs]

With little evidence to suggest that stocks from previous declared years are running low, I reckon, irrespective of quality, that they will probably give '07 a miss.

Interesting prediction. We'll see if it comes true. I was thinking that they might declare, but a smaller than usual declaration.

-Dave-