2014 Declaration Speculation
Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:29 am
The 2014 declaration season is coming up. Since the season and harvest were... mixed?... I thought it would be fun to speculate about who might declare.
Personally, I'm still holding out for a Graham's The Stone Terraces declaration. When we visited on the 2014 Port Harvest Tour Dominic told us that they'd completed harvesting both vineyards before the rains came, so the fine growing season wasn't ruined for this particular offering. We also got to taste the Port (if it can even really be called Port that early in the process!) and I thought it was pretty fabulous. Hopefully it will have developed nicely over the last 18 months and be fit for a declaration!
Beyond that... in very broad and general terms... I suspect we'll see declarations from the Douro Superior. The growing season out east was very good and harvest for most growers was done before the rain came, or was missed by the rain entirely. The Cima Corgo will probably be mixed depending on exactly when people harvested, but the ones who declare will likely have very fine offerings. I fear for the Baixo Corgo and suspect there won't be much declared. My impression was that the season was late there and more-or-less ruined by untimely rains.
So I'm predicting a partial declaration.
Personally, I'm still holding out for a Graham's The Stone Terraces declaration. When we visited on the 2014 Port Harvest Tour Dominic told us that they'd completed harvesting both vineyards before the rains came, so the fine growing season wasn't ruined for this particular offering. We also got to taste the Port (if it can even really be called Port that early in the process!) and I thought it was pretty fabulous. Hopefully it will have developed nicely over the last 18 months and be fit for a declaration!
Beyond that... in very broad and general terms... I suspect we'll see declarations from the Douro Superior. The growing season out east was very good and harvest for most growers was done before the rain came, or was missed by the rain entirely. The Cima Corgo will probably be mixed depending on exactly when people harvested, but the ones who declare will likely have very fine offerings. I fear for the Baixo Corgo and suspect there won't be much declared. My impression was that the season was late there and more-or-less ruined by untimely rains.
So I'm predicting a partial declaration.