2011 Blind tasting of the Vintage Ports

[Axel P]

On June, 21, the IVDP (Portwineinstitute) organised a blind horizontal tasting in Foz (Porto) with 56 Vintage Ports of 2011. The tasting was superbly organised and carried out over 5 hours. Thereafter the Ports could be retasted with the Producers present:

TPF1.jpg[/attachment [attachment=0]TPF2.jpg

[RAYC]

Wow - those look like generous pours for a 56-bottle horizontal!

How many bottles of each port were required?

[jdaw1]

In a fifty-six bottle horizontal of something mature, with lots of spitting, I would struggle to make good sense of the last third. And brand-new vintage port would be more difficult.

How well did you cope?

[g-man]

would imagine with all the purple mouths, stumbling, and potential slurring of speech might have been mistaken for an impending zombie apocalypse!

[Glenn E.]

In a fifty-six bottle horizontal of something mature, with lots of spitting, I would struggle to make good sense of the last third.

In the scenario you have presented, I imagine that I would be good for possibly the first quarter, barely capable for the second quarter, rubbish for the third quarter, and completely useless for the fourth quarter.

For 2011s? I can reliably examine 5-6. The "fade" is very rapid from that point. At this extremely young age they're just too difficult for me to process once my palate has been abused by their brash youthfulness.

On the other hand, I would happily drink several glasses while watching others attempt to rate them.

[Axel P]

Good points and inputs from all of you.

What I did on this was the following. Firstly we had 5 hours of time and was - together with Fernando Melo from Revisto do vinhos - the only one who used this. I believe that there were some 6 bottles of every Port present.

Secondly I did conserve a glass or two with favourites from each flight. I took lots of time in between the flights for breaks.

Once getting unsure about high or low ratings I always did try the favourite Ports as reference from the previous flights, which helped me to syncronize the baseline again. In the end I was extremely happy with the tasting, though fully agreeing with all of you that one would rather like to have more time.

At home I am re-evaluating all samples over a period of a couple of days.

Thanks for the feedback

Axel