2007 Vintage Port Declarations

[DRT]

Although unconfirmed I was told that I would get a strong support from Noval for my german VP tasting next year. I guess that should mean something, but nothing official yet.

My understanding is that they will declare Noval and Silval but Nacional is not yet decided.

[jdaw1]

There’s a trade function in NY on Monday at which Noval and Romaneira will be presented.

[Axel P]

Delaforce and RCV are declaring, too. That solves the mistery about the brand's future, I guess.

Axel

[Axel P]

Portal is declaring, too.

Axel

[uncle tom]

Delaforce and RCV are declaring, too. That solves the mistery about the brand's future, I guess

Do you know who made the Delaforce? Is it still a wine based mainly on grapes from Q. Corte, or an RCV wine from Q. Carvalhas etc..?

Tom

[Axel P]

I asked exactly this question to my contact at RCV and as well asked for some more info concerning a possible strategy for the future of Delaforce since I do not really believe that the brand fits into the PORTfolio of RCV. Let you know asap.

Other impressions, please?

Axel

[DRT]

List updated to this point.

[DRT]

In addition to their classic Vintage Port, Niepoort will declare an SQVP produced from grapes from their Pisca vineyard.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHPxKUd6vio - link cross-posted from

[SushiNorth]

OK, so about that video...
1) Go Dirk. That they went and put this on youtube is a great move. It also lets me "meet Dirk" and he's got a very pleasant demeanor.
2) I don't necessarily agree with his analysis of N07, but I think he fairly describes what we were hearing about conditions that year. Also gave some interesting backstory about Pisca.
Perhaps some of the others will take a cue from this and talk about their wines.

[jdaw1]

Readers might also be interested in the thread The 2007 Vintage Port Declaration: Preview Tasting New York, which includes comment on prices. (Low-bandwidth users might be less interested: the first page of that thread contains 5.4 megabytes of pictures.)

[JacobH]

Based on Julian's post, should Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha be added to the list?

I hadn't noticed this before, but there seems to be the beginnings of a trend of shippers declaring both a SQVP and a VP in the same year.

[DRT]

Based on Julian's post, should Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha be added to the list?

Will do so now.

I hadn't noticed this before, but there seems to be the beginnings of a trend of shippers declaring both a SQVP and a VP in the same year.

Perhaps this is in part a reaction to the demand for wines that can be drunk young whilst allowing the shippers to also make long term keepers?

[RonnieRoots]

The first official prices came in:

- Fonseca 2007: € 73,50
- Taylor's 2007: € 59,95

As listed on the site of Ton Overmars in Amsterdam, who is usually quite competitive in pricing. These prices are lower than the 2003's on release. Good news.

[Glenn E.]

The first official prices came in:

- Fonseca 2007: € 73,50
- Taylor's 2007: € 59,95

As listed on the site of Ton Overmars in Amsterdam, who is usually quite competitive in pricing. These prices are lower than the 2003's on release. Good news.

Whether that's per bottle or per case it gets the same reaction from me:

[jdaw1]

‟per fles” = per bottle.

[g-man]

i wonder what the state side prices are then. ..

the 03 fonseca was 49$ when i picked it up

[DRT]

The first official prices came in:

- Fonseca 2007: € 73,50
- Taylor's 2007: € 59,95

As listed on the site of Ton Overmars in Amsterdam, who is usually quite competitive in pricing. These prices are lower than the 2003's on release. Good news.

With the £:€ exchange rate at as good as 1:1 those are prices that will prevent me from buying any 2007s for a very long time to come. £70 for a bottle of 2 year old VP that I won't drink for 20 years just doesn't make sense to me

[DRT]

Should we put prices in a new thread?

[uncle tom]

Should we put prices in a new thread?

We should certainly distinguish between prices for different markets & merchants, and possibly sales qty

Why not add lines beneath each declared VP such as:

Fonseca
- Ton Overmars (NL) €73,50/75cL

Tom

[Alex Bridgeman]

- Fonseca 2007: € 73,50
- Taylor's 2007: € 59,95

Holy Cow!! That Fonseca price is astonishing. I paid £31 a bottle, on release and in bond, for my Fonseca 2003 and I've seen them at auction in the £27-35 per bottle range.

No way will I pay £66 per bottle for the 2007 (or even £54 for the Taylor). Sorry TFP, but if those are the prices then the UK will buy absolutely nothing.

Ouch!

[uncle tom]

Holy Cow!! That Fonseca price is astonishing. I paid £31 a bottle, on release and in bond, for my Fonseca 2003 and I've seen them at auction in the £27-35 per bottle range.

Indeed, but Dutch prices have been very high (in recent years, at least) - hopefully they are not planning to ask such a ludicrous sum in the UK.

The UK auction price for the 2003 has been about £260 - £280/case, barely a third of the Dutch release price for the '07...

Tom

[RonnieRoots]

The '03 release prices of Fonseca and Taylor were about €90 and €75 in the Netherlands. Very expensive, and that's mostly due to the Dutch importers and their ridiculous mark-ups. So this is a step in the right direction. But I agree it's hardly attractive with the current €/£ exchange rate.

Back in 2005 I was tempted to buy Fonseca 03 from BBR, which had a much better price. Including VAT, duty and shipping to the Netherlands it would come down to about €55 a bottle. I managed to find them for the same price closer to home back then, so didn't do it eventually, but just to give you an idea of price differences between NL and UK.

If the prices are right in the UK this time, it would be very attractive for me to buy there, given that I'm on the right side of the low £.

[DRT]

AHB sent me an email earlier today and asked me to post this on his behalf as he has other things to attend to this evening:

At a presentation of 2000, 2003 and 2007 vintage ports by the Taylor Fladgate Partnership, the Symington Family and Noval / Christian Seely, the following interesting items of information were gleaned:

- Retail prices for the 2007 TFP wines are likely to be around 10% higher than the 2003 prices. This reflects a combination of significantly weaker sterling offset by reduced prices reflecting the economic climate. In the order of £45 per bottle in bond for Taylor and Fonseca and £30-35 for Croft.

- TFP and Adrian Bridge in particular are determined to make Croft one of the top tier port producers.

- The growing season was compared by Adrian Bridge to that of 1966 and the bouquet of the wines to those of the 1992 vintage.

- Taylors will be making mixed cases available through their agents, containing 2 bottles Croft, 2 Fonseca and 2 Taylor. This was being pitched at the gift market but I pointed out that this was also perfect for the poor modern consumer forced to use offsite storage where the storage company would only hold unbroken and unmixed cases. Perfect for having balanced drinking by the case in 20 years time.

- Taylors offer to retailers was issued last week and the Symingtons offer went out this morning. Prices to us, the consumers, should be available soon.

- Adrian did not use apostrophes at all during his conversations.

- The Symingtons have entered the ultra-fine port market with Vesuvio Capela. This is a Susao containing blend of super selected grapes with only 250 cases being released.

- Other wines being shipped by the Symingtons include the regular Vesuvio, Graham, Dow, Warre, Smith Woodhouse, Gould Campbell and Quarles Harris.

- Taylors will also be releasing a Skeffington 2007 blend.

- There is a further presentation of 2007 ports on 19th May at Vintners Hall.

[jdaw1]

- The Symingtons have entered the ultra-fine port market with Vesuvio Capela. This is a Susao containing blend of super selected grapes with only 250 cases being released.

Not mentioned on the rather sparse www.quintadovesuvio.com/pt/news.asp, nor on the differently sparse www.quintadovesuvio.com/news.asp.

[g-man]

repost from spectator, Suckling's reviews.

"I was spellbound by the top Vintage Ports of my tasting. They include: Taylor Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha (97-100 points on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale), Graham (96-99) and Warre (95-98), followed by Dow, Quinta do Noval and Taylor Fladgate (all 94-97). These were the Ports that showed the best grip, the highest density and quality of ripe tannins, and opulent, sweet fruit."

[Andy Velebil]

I haven't read Suckling's reviews, but lets just say IMO he's a little high on a few of them.

[Axel P]

I tasted a Royal Oporto sample yesterday, which showed more on the elegant than on the massive-tannic style. Extremely well done though.

Axel

[JacobH]

- Taylors will be making mixed cases available through their agents, containing 2 bottles Croft, 2 Fonseca and 2 Taylor. This was being pitched at the gift market but I pointed out that this was also perfect for the poor modern consumer forced to use offsite storage where the storage company would only hold unbroken and unmixed cases. Perfect for having balanced drinking by the case in 20 years time.

I think that's a great idea for any poor modern consumer, even if he or she is storing them onsite. There's no way that I'll be buying 6 of each of those ports on release, but I might be tempted to buy something like this so that I can have a nice selection available without the commitment of half a case of each. It would be nice to see such a thing from Symington, too. Perhaps one bottle of each of their houses, plus a bottle of this Vesuvio Cristal?

I could see it also working for those who drink a lot of wine but not a lot of Port. They might like a selection of Vintage Port without having to acquire a case of one particular brand.

[Axel P]

I haven't read Suckling's reviews, but lets just say IMO he's a little high on a few of them.

I agree, Andy

Axel

[g-man]

Although unconfirmed I was told that I would get a strong support from Noval for my german VP tasting next year. I guess that should mean something, but nothing official yet.

My understanding is that they will declare Noval and Silval but Nacional is not yet decided.

mr. suckling has said that Christian Seely has confimed that no Nacional will be declared this year.

[Andy Velebil]

I haven't read Suckling's reviews, but lets just say IMO he's a little high on a few of them.

I agree, Andy

Axel

Yes, it appears from his article that he tasted these only once each...a "snap shop" tasting if you will. Hard to do a snap shot tasting of such young VP. You can get a broad feeling, but they can change dramatically over 2-3 days, sometimes better, sometimes not. The Croft is one I'll mention that started out a little slow but totally morphed by day 2 and was even better at day 3. It's also hard as many are still in tank and not yet bottled, so there can be some "tanky" notes that you have overlook as those will go away once they are bottled and settle down.

[g-man]

I haven't read Suckling's reviews, but lets just say IMO he's a little high on a few of them.

I agree, Andy

Axel

Yes, it appears from his article that he tasted these only once each...a "snap shop" tasting if you will. Hard to do a snap shot tasting of such young VP. You can get a broad feeling, but they can change dramatically over 2-3 days, sometimes better, sometimes not. The Croft is one I'll mention that started out a little slow but totally morphed by day 2 and was even better at day 3. It's also hard as many are still in tank and not yet bottled, so there can be some "tanky" notes that you have overlook as those will go away once they are bottled and settle down.

to be fair tho, suckling has done this as a full time profession for years. Judging wines from the barrels and sitting down to do 50-100 wines at a time.
I give him the benefit of the doubt as it is his craft and he seems pretty good at it.

[Andy Velebil]

G-man,
Not talking bad about him in any way, I totally respect his Port palate. But for anyone, experienced or not, tasting Vintage Port cask samples is not easy at all. Even Suckling admits to that in his article. It's can be very hard or misleading to try these in only one short window. Generally most reviewers in this setting only spend less than 5 minutes per Port evaluating it. Not a lot of time to really get a sense of where it may or may not go. Still useful? Yes, but can often be very misleading. I used the Croft as an example earlier and it was a perfect example to highlight this. The first day I had it it was tight, yet I could tell something was there, but it wasn't giving up a lot. On days 2 and 3 it blossomed into this awesome VP. That's what I'm talking about, and that one example highlights some potential pit falls with snap shot tastings.

Having had more time to read through Suckling's TN's, there are some I agree with and some i don't, which is to be expected. I will defer to others who've said this....wait until you can read several reviews on these before determining which you want to spend your money on. Taking only one persons point of view may turn out to be the wrong choice, regardless of who the reviewer may be.

[RonnieRoots]

I haven't read Suckling's reviews, but lets just say IMO he's a little high on a few of them.

I agree, Andy

Axel

Yes, it appears from his article that he tasted these only once each...a "snap shop" tasting if you will. Hard to do a snap shot tasting of such young VP. You can get a broad feeling, but they can change dramatically over 2-3 days, sometimes better, sometimes not. The Croft is one I'll mention that started out a little slow but totally morphed by day 2 and was even better at day 3. It's also hard as many are still in tank and not yet bottled, so there can be some "tanky" notes that you have overlook as those will go away once they are bottled and settle down.

to be fair tho, suckling has done this as a full time profession for years. Judging wines from the barrels and sitting down to do 50-100 wines at a time.
I give him the benefit of the doubt as it is his craft and he seems pretty good at it.

Amen. Suckling does a very good job at Vintage Port. My only wish would be that he would be able to give the subject of port more attention in WS. Andy's comment really doesn't do Mr. Suckling's experience and tasting skills justice.

[Andy Velebil]

Understand I am not knocking Suckling at all, I completely respect his Port palate and his experience, so you need to get that out of your heads and stop trying to create something that isn't there. I've often looked to his scores for my own use in selecting a Port that I've not had before, so I do trust him. What you need to understand though is that a snap shot tasting of ANY VP cask sample can be misleading at times...FOR ANY REVIEWER, me included. Until you've had the opportunity to evaluate cask samples this may seem strange. But ask anyone here who's done so and they will tell you how hard it is no matter what your experience, especially when you've only been able spent a few minutes with a cask sample. Look at Julian's notes, even he states he isn't sure how to take notes on them...here is his own words

I can’t do tasting notes of cask samples. Both because I lack the experience of them, and because palate exhaustion set in after approximately one sample.

I know Julian, he has a great palate, he and I have tasted cask samples together, yet even he states how hard it is to review them. So imagine spending probably less than 5 minutes a glass with this type of wine. That's a small window for a wine that is destined to last for 30+ years no matter what you're experience is.

Check out the Wine Advocate forum (Squires Forum) and Neal Martins take on them. Some of the scores are similar and some are very different than Sucklings...so is he wrong and Suckling right? No way, but each had only a snap shot tasting of them so that is to be expected. Just as some of my notes will be different from theirs. But at least for some of them I had extended tasting experiences with them and saw what changes occurred. Some of my notes and scores also changed as a result of extented tastings with them.

Matter of fact lets look at it this way. If I popped a top notch 1970 XYZ Vintage Port, had one small glass right when it was opened, then wrote that this VP was hot, disjointed, and not very good. Everyone would have a melt down and say something like "of course it didn't show well, you should have decanted it for X amount of hours first and seen it's true potential." Same goes here! Instead everyone is running around like Suckling's notes are king just because he was the first to put them on paper (or computer ). Again, not saying they are wrong at all...just take them and any other snap shot tasting for what they are, a quick overview of a wine that may or may not get substantially better with time.

[jdaw1]

I know Julian, he has a great palate,

I also know Julian, and he doesn’t.

But what you say is plausible: five minutes per port for dozens of ports would be difficult with mature soft port impossible to do well with such youngsters.

[g-man]

I know Julian, he has a great palate,

I also know Julian, and he doesn’t.

But what you say is plausible: five minutes per port for dozens of ports would be difficult with mature soft port impossible to do well with such youngsters.

I too have seen Julian's Palate and it is quite formidable when it comes to putting down a portly amount of port!

[Andy Velebil]

I know Julian, he has a great palate,

I also know Julian, and he doesn’t.

In that case please send all your bottles to me, I will drink them and let you know how they were

[Axel P]

Hey Derek,

arent No 27 and 35 the same or is there really a Romaniera???

Axel

[DRT]

arent No 27 and 35 the same or is there really a Romaniera???

Thanks, Axel. Now fixed

[jdaw1]

37. Ramos Pinto
38. Ramos Pinot Quinta de Ervamoira

Are we going to concern ourselves with the fact that Ramos Pinto is actually Ramos-Pinto?

(Politely pretending not to notice the other typo.)

[Portman]

Besides Suckling and Parker, which other wine critics are worth listening to about Port? Generally I like to read multiple notes on a wine, but unfortunately here in the States Suckling and Parker pretty much corner the market. Stephen Tanzer does a good job with other areas but I dont believe I've ever come across a port note from him. Who else is there? Michael Broadbent? Jancis Robinson? What do you guys use in the UK or those of you elsewhere in Europe?

[jdaw1]

Alex Bridgeman. He’s not speedy about posting online, but when he does, he is thorough.

[Glenn E.]

Besides Suckling and Parker, which other wine critics are worth listening to about Port?

Suckling is good, but I'm not sure I'd say that Parker is worth listening to about Port. I'd easily place Michael Broadbent above Parker when it comes to Port.

I'll second JDAW's recommendation of AHB. Alex's notes are thorough, readable, and spot on.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I am deeply flattered, but I would also recommend Roy's notes. I always find them useful.

Derek and I will post notes on the 2007 ports we've tasted, but we are tasting each of them over a 4 day period to allow them to develop properly. Notes will probably start to appear in a couple of weeks - but I will pop a couple of snapshot tastings of Taylor Fladgate wines in the TN database tonight.

Alex

[ajfeather]

I am deeply flattered, but I would also recommend Roy's notes. I always find them useful.

Derek and I will post notes on the 2007 ports we've tasted, but we are tasting each of them over a 4 day period to allow them to develop properly. Notes will probably start to appear in a couple of weeks - but I will pop a couple of snapshot tastings of Taylor Fladgate wines in the TN database tonight.

Alex

Thank you sir, I was thinking just the same about your notes...very informative!

[Axel P]

I like Mayson a lot, too, but havent heard anything from him about the 07s

Axel

[Axel P]

So I guess Vesuvio Capella should be included, too.

Axel

[jdaw1]

Cappella added; Ramos-Pinto hyphens added.

[Axel P]

Quinta do Infantado is declaring, too.

Axel