How important do you feel is the vintage of LBV?

[Roy Hersh]

Based on a comment that Moses made in the 2005 LBV thread, I thought I'd engage your thoughts on whether or not the vintage date of an LBV matters. If an LBV comes from a lackluster year like 2006, vs. a bottle known for solid Ports like 2003 ... would that make a big difference to you? Basically does it matter or not what the year is on the label, or is producer more important or style? This would likely make for an interesting discussion and the more perspectives on this, the better!

[Glenn E.]

Vintage definitely makes a difference in LBVs, but I'm not sure that the VP quality from that year is necessarily an indicator of the LBV quality from that year. I think that LBVs are more closely tied to VP quality than, say, Colheitas, but you can't just pick a great VP year and expect the LBVs to also be great. It may or may not be true.

Of course, having said that, my favorite LBV is still the 2003 Taylor and 2003 was a great VP year.

[Eric Menchen]

The 2003 Taylor is not my favorite LBV. I wonder if a non-declared year might result in a better LBV since the grapes otherwise destined for VP have to go some where. Might they end up in the LBV?

[Paul Fountain]

I guess that you have competing factors here. You can argue that the overall quality of 03 was excellent and that certainly resulted in some excellent LBVs.
You can also make a case for 04 where there weren't the general declarations by arguing that more of the better fruit from that vintage has wound up in the LBV. I'm happily drinking the Taylors 04 at the moment and I also enjoyed the Dow 04 (I'd still take the Taylors 03 over the 04 though). I think 05 is another variation. there are clearly some impressive single quinta ports about, but from what I've read there are some excellent 05 LBVs floating about as well. I haven't seen many 05s yet so I can't judge there at this stage
I think I read (somewhere on this site no doubt) that only a very small percentage of grape harvest end up in the VP, even in a very good year so I'd back the best of vintages to produce better LBV. I'd also guess that the smaller the producer, the more variation there will be on this guideline.

[Moses Botbol]

I would look at producer, style, and price before looking at the vintage with LBV (this is assuming buying an LBV I have not tried). I will trust they are producing their best product considering what is available to them. Certainly big vintages stick out more than lesser vintages should both be available, but that alone does not make me pick one over the other. I would take an '04 Dow LBV over an '05 Cockburn LBV for instance because I like Dow LBV over Cockbrun LBV.

I would pick the oldest Warre LBV if many were available on the shelf, which I consider Warre the benchmark for all LBV.

[Roy Hersh]

Moses, have you had many Smith Woodhouse LBV's? I'm not saying they are my benchmark, just wondering if you've had a few from different vintages to judge the style.

[Glenn E.]

Moses, have you had many Smith Woodhouse LBV's?

The 1995 Smith Woodhouse is another one of my favorite LBVs, and 1995 wasn't a generally declared VP year. (Though some might argue that it could have been had it not followed so closely behind '91/'92/'94.)

I've had three Taylor's in a row - 2003, 2004, 2005 - and for my palate 2003 > 2005 > 2004. Coincidentally, 2003 was a generally declared VP year, 2005 was an excellent non-declared year that was almost declaration worty, and 2004 was just another year. Of course that's countered by my experience with Quevedo, where I like the 2004 better than the 2005. One of these days I'll open on of my 2003s and complete the series test.

I think Moses is right, though. Producer is more important than vintage for LBV. I do think that vintage plays an important role, but it's less important than producer and possibly even style.

[Moses Botbol]

Moses, have you had many Smith Woodhouse LBV's? I'm not saying they are my benchmark, just wondering if you've had a few from different vintages to judge the style.

I don't think so or can't recall ever trying one, but knowing their Colheita, Vintage, and Tawny; I would not be suprised they were awesome. I take into consideration how large of a share Warre has in the LBV market place, or at least to in the consumer's mind.

Similar to using Mercedes as a benchmark instead of Jaguar, as everyone know Mercedes and its quality. Not everyone is as familiar with Jaguar enough to benchmark cars against them...