For The Love Of Port

Let's say we're close enough to 2010 at this point. That means the 5 decades to choose from are:

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

1980-1989 gets my vote. Whilst there are some excellent wines from 80, 83 and 85 none of those vintages have the range of great wines of the likes of 63, 66, 70, 77 & 94. The jury is still out for me on 2000, 2003 and 2007 as they are too imature to judge at this stage.

1980 is solid, but I only really think of the Dow being a stellar wine from that vintage.

1983 is also solid for drinking now but I can't think of any stars that will excite people in 20 or 30 years time.

1985 has a few fabulous wines - Fonseca and Graham being obvious examples - but the VA problem wiped out around half the declared wines for me and I just don't buy 85s unless I am certain the house didn't have that problem.

Derek

What Derek said. I opened a Graham's 1983 last night. It's nice, but like most of the other 198x I've tasted, not as outstanding as many of the 1960, 1970, 1977, and 1994s I've had. I have a fair amount of 1997 and 200x in my cellar, but I still don't know where they'll fall.

Derek summed it up nicely. for me 1980-1989 was a darker time for VP production. Sure there are some beauties here and there, but there were some not-so-beauties from houses that rarely put out losers in major declarations.

It might help to see what we're working with. Are these all of the "generally declared" vintages?

1960, 1963, 1966
1970, 1975, 1977
1980, 1983, 1985, (1987)
1991/1992 split, 1994, (1995), 1997
2000, 2003, (2005), 2007

1987, 1995, and 2005 all probably could have been generally declared had they not been so close to other general declarations. Come to think of it, that's probably also true of 1967. And then there's 1975, which probably shouldn't have been declared but was in order to support the growers.

To me, the '90s and '00s are pretty safe. Both periods have superb general declarations as well as very solid "between" years. I also think that the '60s are safe because even though 1960 wasn't stellar, 1963 and 1966 both were and 1967 is a coulda/shoulda/woulda.

Which leaves us with the '70s and the '80s.

The '70s has two stellar vintages in '70 and '77. But then there's the incredibly lame 1975, and then there's also the near total vacuum of 1971-1974. I realize we're only supposedly talking about generally declared vintages, but I think you have to look at the rest of the decade also. Aside from 1970 and 1977, the '70s are pretty bleak.

The '80s has one excellent vintage in '85, two weaker vintages in '80 and '83, and a very strong non-declared vintage in '87. '82, '86, and '88 also produced some very nice Colheitas, but that's a different subject.

If you want to strictly limit the discussion to generally declared vintages, then I guess I'll have to agree with Derek that '70 and '77 are enough to pull '75 up past the trio of '80, '83, and '85. But if you look at the '70s and '80s as wholes, I think the '80s is better than the '70s. The '80s may not have Everest and K2, but it also doesn't have Death Valley.

I think I would have to go with 1970-1979 as the weakest because there were only 2 declared vintages of noteworthiness, i.e. 1970 and 1977. Comparing that against 1960-1969, which also had only 2 noteworthy declarations in 1963 and 1966, I would say the 1963/1966 combination wins out over the 1970/1977 combination.

Derek T. wrote:1980-1989 gets my vote. Whilst there are some excellent wines from 80, 83 and 85 none of those vintages have the range of great wines of the likes of 63, 66, 70, 77 & 94.

I got to agree with Derek on this. If we look at some of most prestigious houses of port like Noval & Nacional, Fonseca, Croft, and Sandeman; there were not many “Excellent” releases in the 80’s.

Yes, there are plenty of excellent vintages produced in this decade, but lackluster performance especially by Nacional, Sandeman, and Croft seals it for me.

I was leaning towards the 70's as my second pick, but the quality and amount of good port from 1970 and the generally excellent vintages of 1977 were just a little more to elevate it above the 80's. Yes, '75 and '79 were lousy, but it seems like little is available from those vintages on the market.

Haven't had enough from this decade to say and the 90's on it seems that vintages will be more uniform with generally excellent quality from here on in. I don't think we'll see a spotty decade like we have before. Unless the bar is lifted, the consumer is going to happy with every major vintage release.