My general summary of the 1983 port vintage is that is produced some wines which are pleasant drinking today and will continue to be for another 10-20 years. It is a vintage in which the Symington wines performed better than most of the other big names, but there are also some very enjoyable less-often-seen names (Feuerheerd, for example). I believe this might last longer than the 1985s as there is more structure and less fat fruit, but given a choice today I would probably choose to drink 1985.
It was also a delight to drink only my second Cockburn 1983 that did not suffer from any TCA taint.
1983: Average, with a few pleasant ports.
Examples/justification: F83 and D83 in particular, while not spectacular, I have enjoyed (probably) every bottle of. Many others have been poorer than the good years.
Graham 83 is a serious candidate for port of the 80s, in my view. Ramos Pinto, Niepoort and Warre 83 have all been drinking very nicely over past couple of years. Gould Campbell shows good promise. I had my doubts about this vintage for some time, but now I think it no better or worse than 80 or 85. Though all are admittedly very variable.
94 is a very curious one. Nothing I've drunk in the past 12-24 months has made me want to buy more, but weren'the people writing off 1960 as dead a few years ago? I've taken a reasonable gamble on Vesuvio and Graham 94, but otherwise have quite low stock (Taylor was already far too expensive for me at the time I started buying).
RAYC wrote:Graham 83 is a serious candidate for port of the 80s, in my view. Ramos Pinto, Niepoort and Warre 83 have all been drinking very nicely over past couple of years. Gould Campbell shows good promise. I had my doubts about this vintage for some time, but now I think it no better or worse than 80 or 85. Though all are admittedly very variable.
Not the Graham 83 thing again. I suppose there is a very remote chance that the Graham 83 might get better, not something I would predict, but each to their own. But I do not think that if you did a side by side with the 85 and 83 right now that there would be much doubt of the outcome. As to the point about the three eighties vintages I think you are probably near the mark, the difference being marginal, particular and personal. But I would still rate the 83 behind the 80 and 85, I realise the 80 would not garner much popular support.
But the points you make about the 94 I entirely concur with, even to the comparison with the 1960.
The US version of the 1983 horizontal had notably better results. Yes, there are some poor ports. But at ours there were a good number of very good or excellent ports as well.
DRT wrote:1963: Anyone who is unhappy that their stocks are overrated or fading too quickly can give them to me.
Hmm I think this falls in the same category of another quote from you related to Croft 45 if I recall correctly:
"This can be served to me for breakfast, lunch and dinner!"
Despite some of the 63s got a bit lighter in color recently e.g. the Averys 63 I had two days ago had a proper red color and everything for another 40 years.........
Hope you will be succesful with your plea!
Sorry, but I decided to keep my few cases of 63s I have left in my house
"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough" Mark Twain
AHB wrote:1963 Fine wines; great are still great, lesser now fading or faded
Mostly fading now, even the best have begun the slide. Over rated and over priced.
WS1 wrote:
DRT wrote:1963: Anyone who is unhappy that their stocks are overrated or fading too quickly can give them to me.
Hmm I think this falls in the same category of another quote from you related to Croft 45 if I recall correctly:
"This can be served to me for breakfast, lunch and dinner!"
Despite some of the 63s got a bit lighter in color recently e.g. the Averys 63 I had two days ago had a proper red color and everything for another 40 years.........
Hope you will be succesful with your plea!
Sorry, but I decided to keep my few cases of 63s I have left in my house
I was not offering my few bottles of 63 'free to good home' as it were. I was noting that over the last five-ish years the descent of the 63 has become more precipitous. It may of course do a 1960 and pull itself together. But current prices and reputation seem excessive. Maybe I have just been unlucky with those I have tried; they have been rather too charming.
LGTrotter wrote:over the last five-ish years the descent of the 63 has become more precipitous. It may of course do a 1960 and pull itself together. But current prices and reputation seem excessive. Maybe I have just been unlucky with those I have tried; they have been rather too charming.
1815 - most are over the hill
1816 - no-one declared, and for good reason
1823 - why buy this when you can buy 1827 for the same price?
1931 - One can never have enough.
1945 Fabulous wines, even today
1955 - many very good or excellent, none stellar
1960 - underrated; relatively inexpensive very good port
1963 - excellent, but overrated
1963 Fine wines; great are still great, lesser now fading or faded
1963: Anyone who is unhappy that their stocks are overrated or fading too quickly can give them to me.
1966 - the younger sister blossoms with age
1966. Good port and great port, much of which is still drinking well.
1967. Very good, and under-rated.
1968 - great colheitas, iffy vintage ports
1970 - the greatest vintage of the 20th Century
1970. Even bad producers made good port.
1972 - Delicate, fragile, and fading
1973: Don't drink the purple water.
1975 - poor overall, but too harshly judged; some pleasant port
1975 - too harshly judged; some pleasant port
1975. The best are pleasant drinking, the others terrible.
1975: mostly unpleasant port. Judged rightly by most commentators as poor.
1977 - potentially excellent port with disturbing bottle variation; buyer beware
1977: Some great, some good, some weak, but too many corked or leaking.
1977; idiosyncratic; not as great as originally supposed, some nice surprises but too many nasty ones.
1978. Avoid.
1980 - The good, the bad, and the ugly
1980 - good vintage, good port, good prices
1980 A Symington winner
1980: General declaration
1980: Not ready. Ever.
1981: N/A
1982 Some pleasant surprises
1982: Mostly SQVP
1983 - Mostly rather nice, but don't wait too long
1983 - a sleeper; time may crown this the vintage of the 1980s
1983 Never had a top-rank reputation; always over-rated.
1983: Average, with a few pleasant ports.
1983: General declaration
1983: Is this the right room for an argument?
1983; Hard wines which are usually ungenerous and may not have the longevity often associated with this style of port.
1984: Mostly SQVP
1985 - some great port, some very good port, most merely average
1985. A vintage of extremes the good is great, the bad is awful.
1985: General declaration
1987 - Hard not to enjoy, even harder to find.
1987 - Surprisingly young
1987 - should have been declared
1987. Should have been more widely declared.
1988 - It being my birth year seems to be the sole redeeming factor.
1988; very enjoyable SQVP now alas, a long way down the slippery slope.
1991 - SFE was correct
1991 A solid SQVP year
1991; A vintage for those who enjoy a hint of vegetables in their port.
1992 - TFP was correct
1992 Should have been more widely declared.
1992; A vintage for those who enjoy paying over the odds for their port.
1993 Never had a bad one.
1994 - Very mixed bag, not as uniform as advertised.
1994 - if you couldn't make good port, you were in the wrong business; some superb port, some still in a funk
1994. Not as great as promised.
1995 - Plenty of excellent, mid weight and mid-structure SQVPs at very reasonable prices. Perhaps even more succinctly: Great QPR year.
1995 - Solid, with one or two very good ones
1997, 2000, 2003 - great potential, but not now
1998 the Fonseca Panascal seems OK.
2001 : A Port Oddity
2001: a handy SQVP year
2004: another handy SQVP year
2005: should have been declared?
2007 - likely elegant in the long term
2011 - easy to say now, but the greatest vintage of the 21st Century
2011. Even bad producers made good port; the best might be of the very top rank.
2012 - too soon after 2011; will have some stellar SQVPs
2014 - so much potential ruined by rain at harvest
Some pruning may be required; some obvious ones still missing also.
1920 - some still drinking very well
1927 - stellar vintage, the best are still alive
1935 - a great vintage for some, now very rare
1948 - you can't have enough Taylor
1950 - light and past its best
1958 - some interesting, elegant wines but fading
1983 - willing to swap for 1963s
"The first duty of Port is to be red" Ernest H. Cockburn
I was thinking of Grahams 1952 Single Harvest Tawny and the Niepoort 1952 Colheita, though there might be others too; but I think for the purposes of this list, we're trying to reflect the year overall rather than highlight specific favourite ports, otherwise we'd all be being a lot less concise (and while for example I love F70, having "1970: Fantastic Fonseca" while very true does not help so much on the overall year assessment, and in other years picking a good/bad port while the rest were bad/good would be misleading).
Yes, now I think of it there are at least three '52 Colheitas I can recall having drunk, some on multiple occasions, and one with you, Glenn. Don't think I've had the '52 Kopke though, it wasn't at the Sogevinus Colheita Masterclass at the BFT last year (they showed no '52s for either Kopke, Burmester, Barros or Cálem).
Daniel J.
Husband of a relentless former Soviet Chess Master.
delete.. delete.. *sigh*.. delete...
djewesbury wrote:Potentially. You know what to do. "What C-words were made from the 1952 vintage?"
I will wait for the OP to decide but I think they should go to a new thread as the intention (I believe) was for this thread to be used to summarise vintages in the context of VP. If they are moved this post can be deleted.
"The first duty of Port is to be red" Ernest H. Cockburn
djewesbury wrote:Potentially. You know what to do. "What C-words were made from the 1952 vintage?"
I will wait for the OP to decide but I think they should go to a new thread as the intention (I believe) was for this thread to be used to summarise vintages in the context of VP. If they are moved this post can be deleted.
VP was indeed the OP’s intention, but the thread can accommodate colheitas. Please could folks clearly mark colheita comments as such.
I was thinking of Grahams 1952 Single Harvest Tawny and the Niepoort 1952 Colheita, though there might be others too; but I think for the purposes of this list, we're trying to reflect the year overall rather than highlight specific favourite ports, otherwise we'd all be being a lot less concise (and while for example I love F70, having "1970: Fantastic Fonseca" while very true does not help so much on the overall year assessment, and in other years picking a good/bad port while the rest were bad/good would be misleading).
1952 is indeed at great Colheita vintage. You'd be hard pressed to find an Ok or less one from that vintage. Delaforce is phenomenal; not sure if it was mentioned yet... Not to forget Dalva white either...
DRT wrote:Interesting. Not quite concise, but interesting.
Interesting as in 'he might have something there' or interesting as in 'these are the drunken ramblings of someone who clearly doesn't understand port vintages'?
The former. I was merely commenting that the implied wishes of the original poster were not necessarily being taken into account.
"The first duty of Port is to be red" Ernest H. Cockburn
I have a suggestion. Might the admins / the OP take it on themselves to put the latest version of the list in the first post? That way it would be easy to find and easy to add one's contribution / update. Of course ideally we'd be using a non-linear-based GUI in which the spatial relationships between the posts was dynamically defined; but, while you work on that...
Daniel J.
Husband of a relentless former Soviet Chess Master.
delete.. delete.. *sigh*.. delete...
DRT wrote:Interesting. Not quite concise, but interesting.
Interesting as in 'he might have something there' or interesting as in 'these are the drunken ramblings of someone who clearly doesn't understand port vintages'?
The former. I was merely commenting that the implied wishes of the original poster were not necessarily being taken into account.
In this case I was not summarizing, but rather providing evidence for my earlier concise summary.
I do like Andy's summary. Very concise and quite accurate.
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