For The Love Of Port

I was just playing with my personal TNs and was curious which houses I favor. I did not differentiate from VP to SQVP, and I had to have at least three to count...the results surprised me a little, mainly because I've had so little Fonseca and none considered stellar except one 1985. My favorite houses based on my scores to date are....

1. Grahams
2. Croft
3. Dows

What are yours?

Great topic, John!

I haven't actually examined my tasting notes, but if I had to guess I'd say mine are probably:

1. Graham
2. Fonseca
3. Vesuvio

Just a couple of years ago I probably would have had 2 and 3 reversed, but I've had a lot of really good Fonseca lately. :)

To be honest, I haven't tasted too many VPs. Perhaps from 7 different producers. The ones that I have preferred so far are:

1) Taylor
2) Graham
3) Fonseca

At their best, my top three houses for VP would be:

1. Fonseca
2. Warre
3. Croft

However, Grahams seems to often perform more reliably in the poorer years, and so might squeak on to the list depending what method is used to calculate your statistics and result (just taking the best years, just on what you choose to drink, on average scores for all years, etc).

Christopher B. wrote: The ones that I have preferred so far are:

1) Taylor
2) Graham
3) Fonseca

They are have the most consistent vintages over the last 100 years. Croft, Cockburn, and Sandeman have had downturns over their history. Dow and Warres are worthy of including on a top list as well.

I thought this was a great question and one which I decided I would answer twice. The first question was which producer would I go to if I wanted a reliable and top quality vintage port. If I knew nothing about vintage variation but only knew a name, which shippers would I choose. I based this on the average score I've given to a shipper across all the ports I have tasted. This gave me the following list:

• Constantino
• Fonseca
• Graham

The Constantino came as a real surprise to me but I have had several different vintages and all have been extremely good. The Fonseca and Graham did not come as a surprise - there is a reason that these two producers are regarded as being at the top of the market.

And then I asked myself, who made the best ports I have tasted? And how many of them did I think were among the absolute best ports ever made? That generated a slightly different list:

• Croft (1927 and 1945, both 99 points)
• Noval (1927, 1931, 1963 Nacional, 2011 Nacional at 99 or 100 points)
• and tied equally in third would be Graham (1927) and Warre (1922)

For me it would be
Fonseca
Croft
Graham

Great question-- tough answer
Graham
Dow
Fonseca

( taylor, croft, cockburn if we were going to 6)

Top houses: Taylor, Fonseca, Quinta do Noval
Personal favorites: Quinta do Vesuvio, Smith Woodhouse, Niepoort

I'd have to stretch this a bit:

a. Taylor/Fonseca - truly tied
b. Dow/Graham - couldn't pick one if I had to ... vintage dependent, with a slight preference to Dow's style, but the consistency/greatness of Graham's makes it a pure tie.
c. Niepoort

Moses Botbol wrote:

Christopher B. wrote: The ones that I have preferred so far are:

1) Taylor
2) Graham
3) Fonseca

They are have the most consistent vintages over the last 100 years. Croft, Cockburn, and Sandeman have had downturns over their history. Dow and Warres are worthy of including on a top list as well.

Wasn't sure if this was clear in my post, but my Top three in no order are:

Taylor
Graham
Fonseca

As Roy posted earlier, I too would include Dow as a tie somewhere on this list.

Graham and Fonseca by far the first and second place, third place could be one of the following houses: Niepoort, Vesuvio, Dow or Taylor's. Depends on the vintage.

Not an easy list to narrow down by any means. I looked at how a given house has performed over the past 100+ years and how they continue to hold up many decades later. I found that many houses had periods of making not so great VP's, usually followed by being bought by someone else and returned to it's previous glory (or on the road now). Some basically disappearing altogether or they've stopped making VP under the label. So that made my decision a little harder in some respects, and easier in others as the later I removed from my short list. I also added in the original question from John " I did not differentiate from VP to SQVP" which also threw a monkey wrench in things as I now had to factor in non-classically declared VP's.

So factoring in both VP and "SQVP"* here it is in no particular order;

Fonseca
Noval
Graham's


*I used quotations as some, such as Graham's Malvedos and Fonseca Guimaraens were/are not true Single Quinta's. Though Malvedos is now.

Working off of what I'd consider my top 10-20 VPs that I've had, so just the highlights rather than so much of the consistency over the last century, here's what made my top 3:

1. Fonseca
2. Graham
3. Noval

While Taylor has also made a lot of great VPs, I am less attracted to the spirity hot candy character they embody so often that they'd rank #4 for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalkz. U

Bradley Bogdan wrote:Working off of what I'd consider my top 10-20 VPs that I've had, so just the highlights rather than so much of the consistency over the last century, here's what made my top 3:

1. Fonseca
2. Graham
3. Noval

While Taylor has also made a lot of great VPs, I am less attracted to the spirity hot candy character they embody so often that they'd rank #4 for me.

I could not consider Noval with their lackluster vintages in the 80's and some "so so" vintages earlier than that. For me, the producer has to have great or at least consistent vintages in every decade. Same reason I would not include Sandeman or Croft.

Moses Botbol wrote:

Bradley Bogdan wrote:Working off of what I'd consider my top 10-20 VPs that I've had, so just the highlights rather than so much of the consistency over the last century, here's what made my top 3:

1. Fonseca
2. Graham
3. Noval

While Taylor has also made a lot of great VPs, I am less attracted to the spirity hot candy character they embody so often that they'd rank #4 for me.

I could not consider Noval with their lackluster vintages in the 80's and some "so so" vintages earlier than that. For me, the producer has to have great or at least consistent vintages in every decade. Same reason I would not include Sandeman or Croft.

But you can say the same about Taylor. In the 1980's they had some very lackluster VP's. Fonseca did too, except for 1985. But 1980 and 1983 are far from great. If you look hard enough almost all major Port houses had at least one or more periods of not doing so well when they should have.

Andy Velebil wrote: But you can say the same about Taylor. In the 1980's they had some very lackluster VP's. Fonseca did too, except for 1985. But 1980 and 1983 are far from great. If you look hard enough almost all major Port houses had at least one or more periods of not doing so well when they should have.

Taylor & Fonseca were not nearly as bad as Noval, Croft and Sandeman during that era.

Oh I agree, if my criteria penalized poor stretches rather than just rewarded great wines, Noval wouldn't be there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalkz. U

Moses Botbol wrote:

Andy Velebil wrote: But you can say the same about Taylor. In the 1980's they had some very lackluster VP's. Fonseca did too, except for 1985. But 1980 and 1983 are far from great. If you look hard enough almost all major Port houses had at least one or more periods of not doing so well when they should have.

Taylor & Fonseca were not nearly as bad as Noval, Croft and Sandeman during that era.

But that is not what you said...For me, the producer has to have great or at least consistent vintages in every decade. Taylor and Fonseca don't fall into that camp in the 80's,that's for sure.

On a question like this, never be persuaded by the opinions of others, or the standing of existing big names - make your own mind up, preferably by tasting blind,

Above all, give the little guys a fair shot - there are some really good small time vintage
ports waiting to be discovered out there..