For The Love Of Port

So it is highly likely that people who frequent Port websites/forums had a chance to try some 1983 Vintage Ports this year. Checking in at 30 is certainly educational. Beyond specific VP's from this vintage, it would be great to hear your overall thinking of where the 1983's stand in comparison/contrast with 1980, 1985 and overall in the scheme of fine vintages in the past 50 years.

My general impression is that 1983 is a better overall vintage than either 1980 or 1985, but that 1985 has a handful of individually better Ports. 1980 seems to pretty much pale in comparison to either '83 or '85 with one or two notable exceptions (Dow, Gould Campbell).

All three vintages do seem to be maturing very nicely!

I have generally preferred 83's over 85's, and this year was no exception. I've not had enough 1980s to really make a strong statement, but the few I've had put it in third.

I had a few 1983 over the last year. I really like this Vintage, overall I think it has proven to be a very good long lasting declaration and that on average, it is better than 80 and 85. Though I think the finest 85 are better than the 83's. I think the only 80 I had was Dow's and Graham's. Before this I mostly only had the Dow's in half bottle, this time it was showing very good compared to my experiences with half bottles.

My top 83 is probably Gould Campbell, showing still so dark and young!

Graham's is still very good, perfectly mature and sweet and while 85 might be a tad more complex today I think the 83 will go further.

Ramos Pinto is always good to drink. I'm surprised how well this is holding, it seems that it does not move at all in time as I've been tasting this every 2 years or so for the last decade.

Niepoort can have great and average bottles. I had it twice this year and once last year, 2 of the 3 were very good while the other one was looking much older.

Warre's was very elegant, not as concentrated and fruity as the other Symington's I've tasted, with citrus and esteva notes, complex and lingering, I liked it very much, so easy to drink, which is a good quality here!

Of the three vintages mentioned, 1985 would be my choice. Although I must say that there are a few 80's that I've found to be, at the very least, in the same ballpark as the top 1985's. With that being said, from top to bottom, 1983 is probably the strongest vintage of the three. In retrospect there were quite a few 1985's that have experienced major faults & 1980 wasn't a particularly deep vintage in terms of across the board quality.

I have a preference for the 1985 vintage, mostly because the pleasure I generate from drinking the Fonseca outweighs the disappointment I get when I open a bottle of VA riddled 1985 vintage (Croft, sometimes Churchill). I also find the best of the 1985s (Fonseca) is just better than anything else from these three vintages.

While I really enjoy drinking the 1983 ports and to some extent I am using these as house ports, I do generally feel the 1980 ports are drinking better than the 1983 right now. I am frequently surprised how nice and consistent the 1980 vintage is - Taylor (long viewed as a failure for this house) is gently delicious, Graham is impressive, Dow is powerful and enjoyable.

But the best of the 1983 ports (Graham, Smith Woodhouse) I give a slight edge to over the 1980s.

In other words - I don't mind. Whatever you want to put in my glass from these vintages is fine by me!

I did a presentation for a retailer in Edmonton on Friday night. We had Taylor, Warre's, Ramos Pinto, Fonseca, Gould Campbell, Smith Woodhouse and Cockburn's.

The Graham's topped the class, followed by Gould, and a tie for 3rd place went to Smith Woodhouse/Ramos Pinto. Vote was by 16 Port savvy guests.

Cockburn's was corked.

Fonseca placed next and the least favorite of the group was the Taylor.

The top end of this vintage, seemingly dominated mostly by SFE brands, is pretty darn good.

I believe that the best of 1985 is above anything from 1983, but there may be greater depth across the board in 1983 than 1985.

Roy Hersh wrote:I did a presentation for a retailer in Edmonton on Friday night. We had Taylor, Warre's, Ramos Pinto, Fonseca, Gould Campbell, Smith Woodhouse and Cockburn's...Cockburn's was corked.

No surprise there then. I wonder if I have ever had an untainted Cockburn 1983 or whether the good bottles were just drunk before the TCA could become overpowering?

Roy Hersh wrote:The top end of this vintage, seemingly dominated mostly by SFE brands, is pretty darn good.

I believe that the best of 1985 is above anything from 1983, but there may be greater depth across the board in 1983 than 1985.

That's pretty much where I'm at now, too, and I get the feeling that we're not done yet. I've only been tasting these vintages for ~5 years, but in that time the 1983s have really gained ground on the 1985s for me. Who knows? In another 5-10 years I may like the 1983s better than the 1985s (except probably F85 and G85).

Al B. wrote:I wonder if I have ever had an untainted Cockburn 1983 or whether the good bottles were just drunk before the TCA could become overpowering?

I have had one bottle not affected and it was a powerhouse.

Really tough to say as there are some other factors which come in to play with vintages during the 80's, which in the past I coined the term "The lost decade of Port." No doubt there was some excellent to very good vintages in the 80's (1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987) and some excellent to very good Ports made. Yet many of the "big houses*" back then didn't do so well overall. There were lots of issues with corks (a left over from the mid to late 1970's), TCA, volital acidity, and Ports that seaming from early reviews started well have now prematurely aged.

If I had to say, right now, and putting aside the issues mentioned, I'd probably say it's a pretty even split between them.

But if you factor in the issues mentioned, I'd say 1985 has 1983 beat across the board and has more solid wines which will last longer. At least with the 1985's it's now easy to say "avoid that producer as they've got a XYZ issue." Much harder to do with pre 1985 VP's (1983 Cockburn excluded) as the issues tended to be more variable bottle to bottle.


*The Symington stable of Ports have seemingly weathered the storm better than others.

Alas, too bad the 1987s are so rare.

Alex,

I had a nice run in the past 18 months in which I had 4 or 5 consecutive bottles of 1983 Cockburn's which were not corked. Then again, I changed my protocol after discovering that if TCA was not obvious immediately upon opening ... it typically took 4-5 hours in decanter for it to emerge. So I began to ignore decanting except for sediment and would serve pop and pour ONLY. Even this summer when Rupert popped a bottle of this, I told him about my findings and he was very happy that the bottle did not show any TCA and we enjoyed it immensely. For anyone that has tasted this 1983, it is about as good as any from this venerable vintage. Finding clean bottles is so crazy with the Cockburn's though, I'd never consider buying it again, once I open my last bottle which was from three original cases purchased back in the early 1990's at $19/ bottle.

Must have been a shock wave in the "Force" Roy Sky Walker but I opened a 1983 Cockburn's to see if maybe, just maybe it was not corked. Then I saw this thread. The cork did pull firm--no corked odor. This has a very nice pale ruby amber color. Great nose no wet cardboard yet. The taste is superb, a nice pleasantly sweet Cavendish tobacco nose, nice spicy nice mouth entry. Long finish. Swished around in the mouth, this is how fine port should be and how I remembered Cockburns before the cork showed up. Maybe I should gulp it down before the dreaded TBA or is that TCA shows up?
Yes, I have not posted in more than a year but I did not have anything of importance to say.
I do note that this is our 30th anniversary year and we have been opening bottles from 1983.

Richard Henderson wrote:Must have been a shock wave in the "Force" Roy Sky Walker but I opened a 1983 Cockburn's to see if maybe, just maybe it was not corked. Then I saw this thread. The cork did pull firm--no corked odor. This has a very nice pale ruby amber color. Great nose no wet cardboard yet. The taste is superb, a nice pleasantly sweet Cavendish tobacco nose, nice spicy nice mouth entry. Long finish. Swished around in the mouth, this is how fine port should be and how I remembered Cockburns before the cork showed up. Maybe I should gulp it down before the dreaded TBA or is that TCA shows up?
Yes, I have not posted in more than a year but I did not have anything of importance to say.
I do note that this is our 30th anniversary year and we have been opening bottles from 1983.

Welcome back and congratulations on your anniversary! I hope the TCA bug stayed away?

There are no signs of TCA. There must be a few good bottles out there. More in the decanter so I will try it again tonight. Over the holidays, I plan to open a few more 83's Taylor( off year), Graham's , Fonseca. I know the 83's held much promise but have fallen off as they have aged. I think they are ahead of the 80's but far behind the 85's.
Maybe the previous reply on the Cockburn's should go to tasting notes?

After 24 hours no TBA . This was one of the good bottles. All heat gone still very smooth.

We are holding a 1983 horizontal at the Bung Hole in London next week and will share our observations.

Daniel Jewesbury wrote:We are holding a 1983 horizontal at the Bung Hole in London next week and will share our observations.

Looking fwd to it!

A late post here but we opened the Taylor 83,( not their best year ever) and again, pleasantly surpised. A nice raspberry torte nose good mouth entry, lots of mild spice and fruit good finish . A solid 90 points.