For The Love Of Port

Fellow FTLOP-sters,

I have found myself shaking my head at my Flat Screen more and more recently on a particular subject. I haven't got the experience to justify my complaint but your going to get both barrels anyway.

We all have a liking for Port? Agreed? There is so much variety out there, particularly at the low end. LBV's, Reserves, Tawnys,etc,etc.
And in much fewer numbers, and at greater expense, Vintage Port.
Now within that field, there is again huge variety, and differing maturing periods.

So when you have a Top Quality, Classic VP which EVERYONE has said is going to be a cracker, but is hopelessly young, why, oh why do you hear sane grown men, acknowledge this fact, and then say they are going to drink a bottle of it now to see how its progressing!!!! Arghh!!!! :wall:

It sends me batty. Yes its a free world. Yes anyone can do what they want, but with all the Port that is right to drink now, or maybe right to drink now, and worth checking on, why destroy a future jewel??? :twisted:

I'm going to lose my rationality for a minute.....

You should be horse-whipped! Laws should be created. At the very least you should be hunted down, slapped with a metal gauntlet and banned from drinking further Vintage ports for FIVE Years!

Right. Now that I've got that off my chest, I'm going to find a Dark Room and take some pills....BUT THINK ON!
When you feel this urge to be a tester, a chemist, a PHILISTINE, just go and grab one of your favourite LBV's instead and do the world a favour!

Alan.

Alan,

Tackling the very occasional younger bottle to get a take on where the vintage is going is not a great sin, although I can't see anything to be gained from opening bottles that are under ten years old.

However, without naming names, there are a few participants here who never seem to tackle a bottle that pre-dates 1985.

Given that mature wines from the vintages between 1970 and 1983 are relatively inexpensive, this strikes me as a little bizarre..

But each to his own - I suppose...

Tom

Alan C wrote:Fellow FTLOP-sters,

You should be horse-whipped! Laws should be created. At the very least you should be hunted down, slapped with a metal gauntlet and banned from drinking further Vintage ports for FIVE Years!

I'm sure this law actually existed when we had an Empire - I'd better stop there or Jay will start planning his UK invasion again :?

Derek

Alan,

I am all for saving those precious bottles until they turn into mature drinkers. However, from time to time i buy a young bottle (usually in 375 ml format if I can find it) so I can try it or see how it is progressing along. This is very important not onlyl to see if the bottle is turning out to be great in its old age, or if its beauty in youth turned into the ugly duckling.

Also, on occassion I just want a nice fruit forward VP that I don't have to think to much about. And a younger bottle fills that role quite nicely. Besides everyone has their own tastes, likes and dislikes. If we all waited until they were old, then who would be able to tell us if the bottle is good or not

Andy,

But isn't that the point. You'd have a hard time drinking all the varieties around that ARE ready for drinking. Why spoil the drinks for future generations. We struggle to find the 30's and 40's and 50's but I would guess they were drunk in their prime in the 60's and the 70's and 80's.
We currently have the 60's,70's and 80's VP's to enjoy.
If everyone says a 2003 VP is a gluggy fruit drink full of heat, and the whole of the Experienced Port Industry and its followers state its useless now and probably is going to be ready in 30 years plus, why do we then see it constantly being appraised by all and sundry over the following decade? And no-one ever says 'Hang on chaps, its ready, everyone got it wrong!' I accept testing that drink after 15yrs, and every 5 years until its in its prime. But only a couple of us have to test it. I respect your opinion on Port. If you say its too young, I dont need to duplicate it, if you say its ready, hurrah, lets enjoy it and compare it and occasionally disagree on its flavours and subtlies.
Like you said, everyone to his own, but I'm in the mood to rattle on about this one.
I'm probably best ignored.

Alan.

Andy V. wrote:I just want a nice fruit forward VP that I don't have to think to much about. And a younger bottle fills that role quite nicely.

Andy, I can assure you that I can drink 30 year old port without thinking too deeply

Derek

A dirty job, but someone has to do it...and as Harry Callahan (aka Dirty Harry) once said:

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

I probably should just lay low as I realize I would one of the first on your hit list were you ever to gather us "infanticidists" into one room, but here goes anyway...

Alan,
I know in the land of the Empire where Old Port flows freely down the streets and no one dares open a young VP before it's predicted prime, this may seem like a given. In fact, if there was a law forbidding VP to be drank before it's 15th or 20th anniversary of its life, I would hung already (no jury needed!) :)

Long and the short of it is, for me, price and availability.
Old VP may be available on every street corner in the UK, and even most decent wine stores in the US. Here in Canada, I am sad to say, it is not.

If you will indulge me and my obsession, taking just a small example, lets compare cost and availability for a VP from one producer, (lets pick Taylor, simply because it is everywhere.) Here are the prices that are available (average) for my limited wine-searcher results (non Pro version) For all prices I am taking a rough conversion on the Canadian dollar to British Pound of 2.25 (XE.com reports the following exchange rate as of today, so not too far off:
1.00 CAD = 0.449013 GBP
(1 CAD = 0.449013 GBP or 1 GBP = 2.22711 CAD)

Taylor 1977 - C$150-225 (£73-100) (not bad if any were available locally)
Taylor 1970 - C$450-600 (£200-267)
Taylor 1966 - C$600 (£267)
Taylor 1963 - C$870 (£387)
Taylor 1960 - C$225 (£100) **1960 must have been a bad year!! If any of this was actually available, it's a BARGAIN!!! :)
These are currently available only in Quebec or Ontario (if at all, most hits were in the USA.) This is an average of 3600km/2250 miles from Edmonton - a little bit further than the distance from St Helens, England to Moscow, Russia (2026 miles/3240 km)

So, next time you are in the nearest spirits store, see how many of these years are available. I am curious and would hazard a guess at 4 of 5. If not in Taylor's, than perhaps in something else.

The LOCAL availability, from all the higher-end stores that carry VP that I have been able to find, aside from private collectors, which I don't have access to anyway, is as follows:


1963 Fonseca C$774.99 (£345)
1970 Graham's C$249.99 (£111)
1970 Dow's C$224.99 (£100)
1977 Taylor's C$324.99 (£145)
1977 Smith-Woodhouse (of poor provenance/storage conditions) C$ 145 (£65)

Sir, I assure you, in all solemnity, that I believe I would much rather be sipping Vintage Port that has at least 30 years under its belt. I'd love to be able to afford such a luxury, even if could find it.

The problem is, I have very little access to VP that is indeed in a ready to drink state. If I could purchase from auction (alcohol is difficult o auction in Canada and therefore, rare) or ship it in from the US or UK, it would still likely be very expensive, but possible more readily available.
:wall: :wall:

I guess what I am trying to say is, for those of us here, and especially those of us here in Canada who are JUST STARTING OFF, Vintage Port is difficult to find and expensive. OLD Vintage Port is stupidly expensive and even more difficult to find. Every once in a while a guy just needs to open up a young VP because I can't afford/find the old stuff... and also because life is really to short for me to never have known what a VP taste like! :) Eventually I'll find some old VP that is available and priced to what I can afford to spend on it. Until then, you may need to mentally hang me a few more times over the next few years... sorry man!

(I just want to drink Port and feel love.....)

Back to murdering more babies....
Todd

Maybe I should get into the wine export business...

..if I sent a single old bottle by air mail to Canada, would your customs officials freak out - or nod it through?

Tom

PS Cost of packing and sending is about 55 Canadian $

I'm probably best ignored

Consider it done ... and to prove the point I shall open a 2004 vintage port when I return to the UK to "see how it is developing".

I'll report back here.



Alex

Alan,

I am with you 100%

I challenge here anyone on this site to be able to desribe a significant diffenrence in any VP from one year to the next, excluding bottle variation.

Sample tasting by experts at 5 year intervals for classic long term VP's is all that os required. The rest of us should just watch and learn.

Derek

Long Live The Empire!!!

Or is that Star Wars?

uncle tom wrote:Maybe I should get into the wine export business...

..if I sent a single old bottle by air mail to Canada, would your customs officials freak out - or nod it through?

Tom

PS Cost of packing and sending is about 55 Canadian $

The maximum you could send is 2 x 750 ml bottles .

Luc

Todd ,
Your rant is well documented , I've also vented some frustrations , mostly towards la SAQ :wall:
Your views are shared with this and other port enthousiasts

Derek Turnbull wrote: Sample tasting by experts at 5 year intervals for classic long term VP's is all that os required. The rest of us should just watch and learn.

Derek

I concur.

Andy V. wrote:

Derek Turnbull wrote: Sample tasting by experts at 5 year intervals for classic long term VP's is all that os required. The rest of us should just watch and learn.

Derek

I concur.

But who are the experts? I would not call myself an "expert" on port, but doesn’t this forum collectively represent a sort of expertise? And thus shouldn’t we be doing the above mentioned tasting? Why let Roy or Robert Parker or Broadbent have all the fun? And what about when the experts have different opinions?

I was locked out of the forum earlier so responded to this thread in the PPforum (accidentally twice and now I cannot get rid of the duplicate post so forgive me) :? , but let me paraphrase my own post there:

-------

There are several reasons one might like to try a young port, and perhaps even more living in the US given the price of old port here. First of all, responding to Tom's comment, port from the 60's and 70's is not really affordable in the US. Even "over the hill" ports from 63 cost $200 US (that’s 100 Pounds/BOTTLE), with Grahams 63 going for at best $269 US, Croft for $170 US. 1970's are not much better, although I recently scored two case of 77 Gould Campbell for $65 US/bottle.....but that is a rare exception.

But, the most pressing reason to try a VP young, which I would recommend to everybody, Alan included, is to see if you like It, before investing in a case or more. Should we just be happy to rely on our brethren’s taste to accept that certain ports are good and then we should buy them without ever tasting them and let them age? I could not disagree more.

Think about the reviews of the 2003 VP's, those of you who have tasted them in the Douro or otherwise....do you agree with the ranking, every time? Should we rely on Rovanni? Or even Roy, whose opinions I respect immensely and am most often in tune with, but not every single time. That's why I need to taste young ports, so instead of buying a case of well reviewed wine, I can buy a case of wine that appeals to me personally.

If I had thirty years of experience drinking VP's at various ages, and watching them evolve, I might be more prone to just buy what I have found to be good in the past (and I do exactly that fairly often), but for me drinking the occasional youngster is part of the learning experience, and one which I could probably never hope to call myself an authority or expert on port without having.

Think about it, how would you be able to decide Quinta do Vesuvio or Quinta do Vale D. Maria (or Quinta do whatever) was good and worthy of your cellar (given the youngest commercially available port from either house is 1989) without ever trying them? How would you know that you wanted to get a case of 2004 Malvedos when it's eventually released unless you had tasted it? Are you likely to see a lot of reviews on Qd Malvedos 2004?

End rant

Jay

Jay,

Forgive my earlier editing job. What I ment to highlight was the tasting it every five years to see how it is coming along. Would I prefer to do this myself? You bet. Although there are some people's palate that I am usually within 1-2 points of, I still prefer to try them myself. But I don't always have the number of bottles to keep coming back to them every five years without being down to a couple of bottles when it is really time to drink them at their peak. And I don't always have the ability to buy a bottle to try before making a larger purchase (example, it was bought mail order from across the country.)

Everyone's palate is slightly different (thank goodness), but I think each person should try to find a professional/well-respected person, or persons, their palate aligns with. Mainly becuase they have access to the bottles on a more regular basis than most of us do and can more readily provide regular updates on how the wine is coming along. it doesn't matter who that person is, be it Parker, ROvani, Roy, Squires, Janis Robinson, someone from this forum, etc. This is even more important, as most people don't have the opportunity to try a large number of young VP's. Which, unless you have lots of experience tasting young VP's, can be a daunting task to try and figure out how to evaluate it and accurately guess where it will be 30 years from now.

Irregardless, the fun of collecting wine is trying them at various stages (whatever the time interval) and being able to say 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now that you remember when it was a 2 year old that was just massive and now it is an elegant mature bottle.

Andy, Jay and Alan,

You all actually bring up good points. I sit here in my hotel room with Ferreira 10 yr tawny in hand, typing this out and thinking "man, Roy sure was right, these guys know how to make Aged Tawny!" However, yesterday, my thoughts on the same line was "Man, Roy is full of s$%#!"

I had a bad experience with food yesterday (ended up very sick until the wee hours of the night) and at first believed the massive heartburn/acid reflux/vomitting I was experiencing was from the Ferreira 10 yr tawny or Broadbent 1996 Colheita Madeira. Fortunately, I got over the sickness and came back to the bottle, and am enjoying it MUCH more tonight than last night,.

I think I have yet to come across a bottle which Roy has spoken highly of which i have disagreed with. Can I take his word that this bottle (be it Tawny or VP) will be great 40 years from now? Well, I'd better be able to as he he has a helluva lot more experience than I do tasting both new and old VPs.

That being said, I do also agree with Jay that I feel the need to taste it myself to validate whether I believe it is something that will mature as I expect it to and hope it will. True, at this point in my life I have no experience with old VP and therefore rely on the TNs and opinions of other, more experienced people, I still say to myself "geez, Robert Parker rated this port 96 pts and Roy gave it it a 94 but I wouldn't give it a SHADE over 88..."


I truly believe that most VO experiences are a crapshoot - you may end up with a fabulous old vintage port or you may end up with what amounts to a terrible tawny. Hopefully when I come across that 'terrible tawny' mistake, it is not a $300 Cdn bottle

OK, all it Canadian passiveness... I seem to be sitting on the fence, but I really can see both sides of the debate on this particular topic. I DO wish i could afford to drink nothing but old VP, to discover which one(s) I like the most, but I really cannot afford this, so I should likely find a reviewer whom I agree with and will follow blindly along in most things VP.

Todd

Jay,

Glad to see we got your blood boiling - I will expect to see your ship looming on the horizon any minute now

Seriously, my point about leaving it to the experts is mainly down to the limits on my own ability to buy as much port as I would need to do this myself. I typically buy 6 to 12 bottles of Quinta do Somethingorother ???? - If I opened one every few years to see how it was doing I would have none left to enjoy when it reached maturity - with the oportunity to sample a few youngsters at tasting events I don't feel the need to pop open a 2003 that I know I will not enjoy sipping throughout an evening. To me that would be a waste of a bottle that I will enjoy in 15 or 20 years time.

Derek