For The Love Of Port

I suppose this applies to both Port an non-fortified Douro wines, but I put it here. You probably don't need google translate for this:

equilibrado e com fruta, podendo chegar a ser um ano ao estilo mais clássico do Douro

A balance of fruit, perhaps a classical year, although the rest of the text made me think more average than outstanding.

https://quintavaledonamaria.com/artigos ... -do-douro/

After nearly two weeks in Portugal it can best be generally summed up as a good dry wine year but a poor year for Port. Lots of rain and cool weather that came in were not kind at all. Of course, that's a general assessment as it's a big place and, as usual, someone will still be able to make a very good Port.

All of the discussions that I had seemed to center around it looking like a fantastic year right up until it rained and then didn't return to warm and dry and breezy. Most people seemed to think it was possible that others had managed to harvest enough to make something great before the rain hit, but that they hadn't.

So... what Andy said. There will likely be some really good table wines, but the Port will be hit-and-miss and mostly on the miss side. Possibly some pretty good SQVPs, but it's not going to be a declared vintage.

Always funny to read that every year someone can find something exciting to write about the last harvest.

Beside 2 weeks of ''normal'' warm weather in July, this is one of the coolest year Douro has experience as far as I can remember. If it was not for an early bud break due to once more, a friendly and warm late Winter, harvest would have been much later.

As far as the rain is concerned, I was in the Douro for a few episodes. I have photos of pouring showers in the Torto Valley in September. But it is a year like 2013 for me. Many promising vineyards but rain came to spoil a continuous quality harvest. I think it is not as bad as 2013 as more was harvested before the rainfall but it definitvely had an impact for an overall declaration.