For The Love Of Port

Are there any questions that you would like to have asked of the Port trade? I am happy to relay any pertinent questions to the Port trade.

Each visit, I have a "theme" support by poignant questions that I ask along every stop, to get a feel for a specific topic and moreso, to have participants of our trip get to see some little known aspect "the underbelly" so to speak, of the Port trade. For example, during the 2007 Port Harvest Trip, my focus was pinpointing the timely and controversial topic of Beneficio rights.

So, if you have something specific you would like to have a broader spotlight on, please fire away!

Here is my question. Might be complex but I think it is interesting. I want to know the opinion of producers about what's going on today versus what was happening 50 years ago.

It is obvious that the quality of the grapes coming in is better than it was in the past. Producers are buying grapes and they suppervise the fermentation, in the past, they were mainly buying fortified wine to blend into VP from unsuppervised vineyards.

A lot of old timers with experience in the Douro are withnessing a change in the quality of young VP. Why are those 91,92,94,2003 Port not shutting down like the past glories were used to do? Why are the young VP so much enjoyable in their youth with no sign of acidity, green touch and harsh tannins the elder are referring too are not withnessed anymore in the young VP.

What is today average age of vines giving grapes for VP compared to VP made in 1960. I'm worried with all the remplanting for money matters that old vines site are not used as much as they did to produce long living VP.

Even though the sanity of the grapes coming in to the winery is really better, do they really think VP made in the new market fashion will last as long as their precessor are aging today? Do pollished tannins, ripe and lush fruits, low acidity and tamed backbone will garanty longevity or only easier sales for bigger volume?

Of course exception are still living but this is a concern I have, a lot of growers and producers did share it with me and even though they are concern they are following the wave so their VP do sell.

That's about it :) I hope we'll have honest enough answer and not politicaly altered ones to increase the sales