Vintage countdown

[oscar quevedo]

The weather in the Douro is changing. It started cooling off last Saturday, when it rained for a hour. The few drops were definitively beneficial. This morning at 7am the temperature was 10ºC and today, at midday was 21ºC at the winery, well below the 29ºC of the last week.

The colours are crazy beautiful, very deep and intense, as almost every winemaker is reporting. The aromas are quite fruity, with blackberry notes, some jam and slightly heat. The body is good but not amazing. I think the grapes from the top of the hills will make better Ports that the ones from very hot zones.

[ajfeather]

Thanks for the update Oscar, hope it turns out to be a good year for Port. If for no other reason than my brother has his first baby and that is one more excuse to stash away some port

[uncle tom]

Oscar,

Are the winemakers saying the vintage is like any previous vintages when you talk to them?

Tom

[uncle tom]

The weather outlook for the rest of the harvest looks benign, with no major storm systems on the radar.

- How much is left to pick now?

IIRC, earlier in the summer, Miguel at Crasto had a predictive start date of today for picking his port grapes; but with reports of the grapes ripening with much greater speed than expected, I wonder if he is actually closer to finishing his harvest now, than starting it?

Since the online community formed, we've often grumbled about the port makers slowness to embrace the internet; and it is a great pleasure to not only get reports from the front line this year, notably from Oscar; but also to be able to see directly, via the Quevedo webcam.

I've been trying to find out whether the numerous rain clouds over Bordeaux this month are proving ruinous for the vintage - or just freshening the grapes prior to harvest..

..but can I find a blog, a webcam, a forum, a blow by blow vintage report..?

If they exist, then Google is failing me..!

Tom

[DLC]

..but can I find a blog, a webcam, a forum, a blow by blow vintage report..?

If they exist, then Google is failing me..!

Tom

Hi Tom. We have a blog running for Malvedos. its just a wordpress blog, but so far getting good feedback - its not full of marketing bs.

If the moderator doesnt mind, I will post the link to it. It comes up in Google if you do a search for 'port blog'

Cheers

[JacobH]

Hi Tom. We have a blog running for Malvedos. its just a wordpress blog, but so far getting good feedback - its not full of marketing bs.

If the moderator doesnt mind, I will post the link to it. It comes up in Google if you do a search for 'port blog'

Not that I am the moderator, but as I’d already posted a link to the Malvedos blog a couple of times in the post about the Graham’s and Quinta Dos Malvedos tasting that we are arranging, I see no reason not to reprint it here:

http://malvedos.wordpress.com

PS. DLC, welcome to !

[jdaw1]

I think Tom was grumbling at a lack of Bordeaux blogs, not port.

‟If the moderator doesnt mind”? 1. actively encourages the posting of useful relevant links. Rephrased, admins are not pretending that this is the only port authority on the web. Post away, now and in the future. 2. As you are trade I’ll refrain from quoting you in the Apostrophe crimes thread, but if I pretend not to notice people will think I’m slacking. 3. Welcome indeed, he long-registered long-quiet of the Symington business.

[uncle tom]

DLC - welcome aboard!

Please feel free to post links to port related sites - this is a friendly site with no commercial sponsors

I'm getting a very positive impression of this vintage, and would like to hear the winemakers opinions. Some comparisons with 2005 have been made, but I would very much like to hear the views of the older winemakers, comparing this vintage with 1987. The published reports of 1987 suggest that 2009 is a similar year - although 1987 suffered rain mid harvest, which I hope this year will avoid!

We always appreciate the views and impressions of those working on the front line!

Tom

[Alex Bridgeman]

Hi Tom. We have a blog running for Malvedos. its just a wordpress blog, but so far getting good feedback - its not full of marketing bs.

If the moderator doesnt mind, I will post the link to it. It comes up in Google if you do a search for 'port blog'

Thanks for posting this and also to Jacob for the link. I have very little time to browse websites looking for blogs like this, so I really appreciate folks making it easy for me to find them.

Great blog, and super pictures. Good to see more producers taking the time to relate to the passionate consumers - gives you an edge over your main rivals

[Andy Velebil]

The Malvedos blog is wonderful! I've posted many times about it on . The Symington's, Miles Edlmann, Henry Shotton, and the rest of the Symington staff are doing a great job of updating it several times a day. Talk about get current up to date information from the front lines.

Many kudo's go to the Symington's for keeping it focused for us uber Port geeks to enjoy

[oscar quevedo]

The Malvedos team is making a great job sharing their activities on a daily basis! I'm enjoying it

[uncle tom]

Atlantic weather fronts (not a tropical storm) are currently projected to coalesce into a rather ugly looking system that may crash into Iberia a week today.

Still early days, and hopefully most of the harvest will be safely gathered in by then - but needs watching..

Tom

[Andy Velebil]

The Malvedos team is making a great job sharing their activities on a daily basis! I'm enjoying it

Oscar, Stop being so modest.

Oscar's blog is also fantastic. I do hope some of you saw the recent live broadcast. That takes a lot of work when one is already fully busy with a harvest going on. many thanks for all the work on that Oscar, I really enjoyed it.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Oscar's blog is also fantastic. I do hope some of you saw the recent live broadcast. That takes a lot of work when one is already fully busy with a harvest going on. many thanks for all the work on that Oscar, I really enjoyed it.

Oscar's blog is great and sets a standard for others to reach. I do really enjoy reading it when I get the chance.

Sadly, I wanted to attend the small producers show in London a couple of days back but wasn't able to - so I also missed the live webcast. Pity.

[uncle tom]

Watching the progress, and projected progress, of the atlantic fronts; it's almost as though the weather is waiting for the harvest to finish..

A little stormy rain may brew up from the south on wednesday, but the big rain formations in the atlantic are now projected to circle out to sea, finally coming ashore at the weekend - probably on sunday.

With reports coming in last week of completed picking at some A grade vineyards, I'm hoping that the famous quintas will be all but done before the weather breaks.

Tom

[oscar quevedo]

I would say that all the grade A vineyards were already harvested. We are now finishing Quinta da Trovisca, which is a grade B vineyard. And we are now starting to rush as the weather seems to be changing. I'm afraid of your projections Tom. It seems they are right. The sky is cloudy tonight and maybe same rain could fall tomorrow. This would be bad. Although almost all the best grapes were already harvested, we still want to make a still red wine out of our fresher grapes of Nacional, Franca and Sousão.

[uncle tom]

Sorry to hear you suffered some rain today Oscar - how much has actually fallen?

What percentage of the total harvest do you reckon has been gathered so far?

Tom

[oscar quevedo]

I don't know how much it fall. We don't have any station to control that and as it was overnight I don't know for how many hours it rained. The baumé dropped for 0.3 degrees, which is bad but not dramatic.

We have 80% of the harvest done. By next Tuesday it should be finished! Hopefully!

[uncle tom]

Given the fantastic Baume readings that have been reported, a drop of 0.3 sounds very bearable.

- I'm sure you're looking forward to getting the last grapes in!

Tom

[jdaw1]

Hurricane GustavBill and Fred are names as humdrum as you could imagine. By coincidence they were attached to the only two named hurricanes to form in the Atlantic in this year’s season, which peters out over the next week or so.

The peculiarly quiet year contrasts sharply with the bout of extreme storm activity seen in the Gulf of Mexico over recent years, which led insurers to issue grave warnings over the influence of climate change caused by global warming.

[uncle tom]

It has been exceptionally quiet in the Atlantic, but across the Panama, in the eastern Pacific, it's been quite a busy year. Further afield, there have also been some notable Typhoons as well..

Tom