2003: The year of the LBV?

[Marco D.]

I'll admit that I don't drink that many LBVs, but I've been on a run of nice 2003s. Seems like you can't go wrong in this vintage... The Grahams was solid, as was the Taylor. The Noval was beautiful and the Niepoort approaches true Vintage Port quality. Anybody else noticing the depth of LBVs in 2003?

[Eric Menchen]

Dow's was true to house style and tasty too.

[Roy Hersh]

Given the slew of positive tasting notes in the past year on amazing LBVs from 2003, would anybody like to ante up another vintage with as many stunning bottlings from as many producers? Or is 2003 a lock as the greatest vintage for 2003s that as a group, we can come up with?

[Andy Velebil]

I think Marco beat you to the punch, by an hour....I'll merge them together.

[Michael Hann]

I had been thinking about this subject recently, based on a comment in Mayson's "Port and the Douro." In his comments on the 2003 vintage, Mayson states 2003 was unusual in achieving both high grape production AND high quality. He says that grape production was up by 20% to 30% relative to 2002 but the beneficio was down by 21% relative to 2002. Mayson also states that some of the shippers were unhappy with this situation, because they saw the abundance of high quality juice as an ideal opportunity to build stocks of reserve and LBV ports. If you've got the book, take a look at this passage -- it is in the last or the next to last paragraph in the description of the 2003 port vintage.

What are the implications of this situation? If you assume the best juice is made into port, I think it implies the average quality across the ports is going to be higher than it otherwise would have been if the beneficio was bigger. Hence, indeed the 2003 LBVs may be better because of this. On the other hand, that is just a theory, and I can think of several specifics that could argue against that theory. Maybe the best juice isn't invariably made into port, or maybe the very best juice is invariably made into vintage port but the second best juice may be directed to tawnies. Maybe more of the increased grape production -- including the higher quality juice -- is at least partially committed to unfortified Douro red wines. Something to think about though.

[Marco D.]

Michael,

I've been wondering about yields in 2003, but was too lazy to look it up... thanks for doing the legwork .

You bring up some interesting points... I can't help but think that a larger quantity (than normal) of quality juice has funneled down into "lower end" bottlings.

As an aside, I think I remember some less than enthusiatic remarks about the Croft Distinction, but a recent bottle was pretty darn tasty... perhaps the current batch contains a good proportion of 2003?

[Roy Hersh]

Check out my 2003 Vintage Port Forecast which gets further into the weather and yields and specifically the Beneficio vs. previous vintages. It might be of interest to you guys.