1988 Warre's Quinta da Cavadinha Vintage Port

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:50 am

Decanted this at 9am. Cork fell apart on me and had to be pushed into the bottle.

Strong smell of varnish and nail polish remover as I decanted. Underneath this is the smell of stewed plums. Not a pleasant combination.

A sample straight from the decanter had the same overwhelmingly unpleasant smell - varnish and black treacle. Settled in the pit of my stomach and made me feel slightly queasy. I recall a wine a long time ago that had a similar smell.

Tasting, there is some date/walnut flavours that would be quite pleasant if it weren't for the awful taint. So unpleasant that I spat the wine out! Interestingly, there was a very long aftertaste with a lot of interesting flavours - shows what the wine could/should be.

Tasting again 3 hours later, nothing has changed.

Can anyone tell me what this awful thing is that has happened to my port? Although I've experienced this before, I've never had it explained to me what has happened or what the cause is. My past experience is that a corked wine tends to smell/taste flat or of mouldy cardboard and this is most certainly not the smell and taste that I am experiencing here.

I hope this is a bad bottle and not typical for the wine. Anyone who can provide some insight? On this tasting and experience, I can't rate the wine - it is undrinkable.

Alex

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:57 am

I seem to recall someone having a bad experience with the '86 as well.

Now I'm curious - this is a relatively high altitude quinta with a north-easterly aspect, which is usually the last of the Symington quintas to be harvested. It was aquired by the family in 1980.

The earliest record of a single quinta bottling that I can find is from 1984, followed by '86, '87, '88 & '89. But then the trail runs cold.

Have the Sym's realised that this quinta is not cut out for a SQVP?

Tom

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:30 am

According to Mason's book "Port and the Douro" the grapes from this Quinta form a substantial part of Warre's VP's in declared years. (Also blended with grapes from Quinta do Bom Retiro Pequeno, in the Rio Torto.) With a SQV produced in good, non-declared, years. It is an "A" graded estate.

I checked Warre's web site and they only talk (alot) about the 1987 vintage. One would think they would list other vintages

A side note..Warre's web site on VP's goes back to 1900. Every port is shows is NOT ready to drink and "Needs more time". This according to their vintage chart. So when are we supposed to drink them,

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:39 am

Its now 4:30pm and this wine has improved in a way that I would not have thought possible. The offensive smell is still there, but much less pronounced and now on a par with the smell of stewed strawberries and plums.

Still a bit odd in the mouth. A first attack of some sort of volatile wax, but then sweet dates and prunes come through. Wonderful aftertaste with considerable length - long enough for me to have finished typing before it fades.

Very peculiar wine. I'd probably score this around 80 points - but could have been considerably higher without the odd, volatile tones. Hopefully this will improve further.

Alex

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:36 pm

Well stone the crows. I am absolutely astonished. This wine has come round completly from the foul, rotten thing that I decanted and has lost all of the horrible varnish smells that it had this morning.

12 hours after decanting, this is a fairly straightforward but very enjoyable glass of mature vintage port. The nose is of sweet prunes and figs, in the mouth its full of christmas cake flavours (went beautifully with the Christmas pudding we had left over) and has an excellent length. Now I would rate this at 88/100. Enjoyable and good value at £14 a bottle.

I would never have believed that this wine would recover in the way that it has. Many thanks to those people who have posted threads on this forum in the past where they have spoken about wines that were undrinkable on decanting but which developed into very drinkable wines. Without your thoughts, this bottle would have gone straight down the sink. I have learned a lesson and appreciate your ealier guidance.

Alex

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:24 am

9/10 people would have written the bottle off and grumbled to their wine merchant, who in turn would have passed back the message that they were getting "a lot of complaints".

This may explain why the Sym's have pulled this SQVP (unless they're holding the stock for late release)

Tom

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:27 am

I opened another bottle of the 1988 Cavadinha this weekend. It was sealed with a normal length cork, branded Quinta da Cavadinha 1988. The wine decanted cleanly off a modest amount of sediment. Some bottle stink similar to the experience last time (see above) was apparent on decanting, but much less pronounced that previously. This time the smell blew off after a couple of hours.

Tasted after 10 hours. The colour of the wine is still deep but is starting to show signs of browing at the edges. Nose of stewed plums and violets. Slightly bitter entry with sweetness masked. Lovely mid-palate of stewed fruits, lots of raisins. Long and lovely aftertaste that brings raisins and grape jelly for ages before slowly fading.

Better in my memory than the last bottle I opened. 89/100 or 5-4 on the Tom scale.

Derek T. · Post by **Derek T.** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:46 am

I bought a bottle of the 89 at the weekend and will be opening it in a week or two. I hope it nothing like your first bottle of the 88 :?

Derek

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:07 am

I've just done a bit of fresh digging on Cavadinha - the wine HAS been declared since '89 - '90,'95 & '96 are in the market place - but wine-searcher does not record any hits in the UK - and younger wines are being held for late release.

If I can pick up an odd bottle at a sensible price, I might try one out of curiosity, but given the reviews, I'm not rushing to buy a case.... :?

Tom

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:55 am

I picked up these two bottles of the '88 Cavadinha from Makro at under £14 a bottle. At that price, it represents pretty good value for money - its not a stunning wine that will set the world on fire, but it is a pleasant glass to nurture over an evening in front of the telly.

Am I getting my "Tom scores" right? To me, the median for a VP is pretty high in absolute terms. I would expect to be happy to buy (at the right price) and to enjoy drinking Vintage ports with scores significantly below the median VP score. Its perhaps only when I get down to the 2-X that I would start to hesitate before I would buy.

In other words, on the basis that 5% of VP's score 0-X and then 10% fall into each of the next 9 bands before a further 5% score 10-X, I would expect to hesitate to buy about 20% of VP shipped and would expect not to enjoy about 5% of the VP shipped.

The Cavadinha '88 was in the range where I enjoyed it, would buy it again but would not seek it out in desperation.

Alex

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:15 am

Yes, there should be as many VP's scoring above five as there are below.

A five score should indicate that across the whole spectrum of vintage ports, there are as many worse as there are better.

From your description, you might have been a little generous..

Tom

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:18 am

I'd happily concede that perhaps I was a little generous. On reflection, I think I might have been. Was it worse than the average quality I'd expect from a VP? Maybe a little.

See if you can get hold of one and try it. I'd be interested to hear where you pitch the wine, your view could act as a moderator for where I scored it.

Alex

Stuart Chatfield · Post by **Stuart Chatfield** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:47 am

uncle tom wrote:I've just done a bit of fresh digging on Cavadinha - the wine HAS been declared since '89 - '90,'95 & '96 are in the market place - but wine-searcher does not record any hits in the UK - and younger wines are being held for late release.

If I can pick up an odd bottle at a sensible price, I might try one out of curiosity, but given the reviews, I'm not rushing to buy a case.... :?

Tom

I have got a bottle of the '78 so unless an absurd forgery it was obviously made as a SQ then. This was a rare miss-described one that I bought as a mixed lot at Christies - it was called "Warre's VP 1978" however, I guessed what it really was and there was other stuff I wanted in the lot so no harm done. I haven't got the book here now but I'm sure I found it in the Broadbent book. I'm a great Warre fan, but judging by these 88 notes maybe I ought to crack this one now! (Or bring it along for novelty value if I can make one of the tastings!) Didn't a few producers make a 78 rather than 77 (Doh! :x ) I think Cockburn did, so surely its not that bad.

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:03 am

In odd moments, I am collating a list of all known VP's, having found omissions in every published work I have come across.

Since the thirties, all this data should be available from the IVDP - in theory..

..however there is no list on their website, and the incomplete nature of the published lists suggest that their data is not readily available.

Information on the SQVP's is particularly difficult to track down - Vargellas has been bottled since '58 (I think) and several of the other 'second string' SQVP's kicked off in '78.

It surprises me that this site is not used to announce VP declarations - or any other new products for that matter. It only takes a few moments to copy and paste a press release...

Cockburn, incidentally, were so preoccupied with maintaining the quality of Special Reserve that they opted not to set aside any good juice for VP between '75 and '83. SQ's from Q. Canais seem to have started in '92.

Tom

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:08 am

It surprises me that this site is not used to announce VP declarations - or any other new products for that matter. It only takes a few moments to copy and paste a press release...

Tom,
This goes hand-in-hand with what we are discussing on another thread. This is the perfect place for the port producers to be involved with and post in. Why they chose to be so secretive is beyond me. I guess tradition is hard to break, but they need to start moving forward into the computer/interactive age.

Stuart Chatfield · Post by **Stuart Chatfield** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:03 am

uncle tom wrote: Cockburn, incidentally, were so preoccupied with maintaining the quality of Special Reserve that they opted not to set aside any good juice for VP between '75 and '83.

Tom

You're right - I knew there was no 77 from Cockburn, but looking at my notes it was Noval that did the 78' not Cockburn.