For The Love Of Port

There may be a broad swath of opinions on this subject, but I would love to hear your opinion as it relates to Port wine:

Is it better to blend ‘in the vineyard’ or blend the finished wine?

I'll vote for blending the finished wine. When you blend in the vineyard you're entirely dependent on nature for your blend, and if nature doesn't cooperate then you may not have something that meets your quality standards.

If you blend the finished wine - by which I assume you mean block planting instead of field blends - then you can correct for nature by using grapes from another source to make up for a bad spot for some particular variety.

I see no downside to blending the finished wine, but plenty of possible problems for field blends.

+1 on what Glenn said.

But I still like the tradition of the field blends.

Glenn E. wrote:I'll vote for blending the finished wine. When you blend in the vineyard you're entirely dependent on nature for your blend, and if nature doesn't cooperate then you may not have something that meets your quality standards.

If you blend the finished wine - by which I assume you mean block planting instead of field blends - then you can correct for nature by using grapes from another source to make up for a bad spot for some particular variety.

I see no downside to blending the finished wine, but plenty of possible problems for field blends.

To play Devil's advocate, I agree that it is easier to achieve, manage and control, but is it always providing the best quality when both are at optimal condition?

Frederick Blais wrote:To play Devil's advocate, I agree that it is easier to achieve, manage and control, but is it always providing the best quality when both are at optimal condition?

Why wouldn't it, since you can control the blend precisely?

If you want to simulate a field blend you could "block plant" by row instead of by field. That way the grapes would still be intermingled as far as bugs and weather are concerned, but you could still control the blend after determining the quality of each type of grape.

Vineyard blending sounds nostalgic and traditional. I see no reason to change it if it has worked so far. I don't see the need to make changes for changes sake.

I agree with Glen, if you have block plantings make the wine separatly at the winery, and then blend it at your preference.

But if we want that complexity of 30 different varietals, we probably have to give up on an integral winery blend. It's very difficult that you can have 30 different block plantings in an very good land/quinta, and proceed with separate winemaking at the winery.

Although I like the idea of a "field blend" and expressive nature that is inherent in that process, I'd say that blending the finished wine is the way to go. It is much more precise and in the end I believe that there is far more fine tuning that can be done to help polish the wine and enhance the complexity.

Marc