The 1980s & quality

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BRPetrie
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The 1980s & quality

Post by BRPetrie »

Afternoon all! Wanted to pick you brains about something.

The 80s - mostly the 83s and 85s are something you see knocking around quite a lot (at very reasonable prices). I've really enjoyed quite a few, but it seems to be generally acknowledged in the literature, tasing notes and by winemakers that the decade was a period of slump in quality and perhaps over-production for vintage port.

Apart form a few notable standouts like Fonseca 1985 or the Churchill wines, what do we all think about this?
Apart from the fact that this may be true, how worth it do we think it is to buy up the 80s while we can rather than 90s say - is their virtue comforting enjoyment rather than excitement?
Have your experiences with the 80s recently or in the past been largely positive or more underwhelming?

Just wondered ...

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PhilW
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by PhilW »

I'm not sure about the relative production quantities, but I would agree in general regarding quality. There are a few exceptions; F85 and T85 are both excellent, and the Ch85 has been very good drinking for the last decade though may not have the same longevity, and personally I would add Ch82 in the excellent category too. Others might add one or two of the 80s (my preference is the F80, though it is variable; I know some others here think well of W80 and D80).
Finally worth mentioning the '87s; the year that should perhaps have been declared but wasn't; some very good wines made that year, especially in comparison to the rest of the decade.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

The 1980s were a decade in which (now) SFE houses flourished, while (now) TPF houses mostly had difficulties. That said, TFP holds 2 of my top 3 of the decade which are (alphabetically because the order changes constantly) 1985 Fonseca, 1985 Graham, and 1987 Vargellas.

SFE
Cockburn: 1983 is fabulous... provided it isn't corked. Which, sadly, is far too rare.
Dow: 1980 and 1985 are both excellent. 1983 is good.
Gould Campbell: 1980 in particular shines, but 1985 is also very good.
Graham: 1980 and 1983 are excellent, 1985 is outstanding.
Smith Woodhouse: 1985 is very good, 1980 and 1983 are also quite nice.
Warre: I have little experience with Warre from the 1980s due to having tasted 1983 Warre and not liking it at all. That led me to avoid Warre for many years until only recently having been surprised by 1977 Warre blind on a couple of occasions. So others would have to rate Warre for you.

TFP
Croft: 1985 is fine but not great. Perfectly happy to drink it any time, but it doesn't stand up to competition in a tasting.
Fonseca: 1980 is abnormally light for Fonseca, but a pleasant Port. As with 1985 Croft, it's a fine Port but it doesn't stand up to competition in a tasting. 1985 on the other hand stands out because it is so much better than any other TFP product from the 1980s except...
Taylor: 1987 Vargellas is fabulous. 1985 is good but not great, at least in my experience.

Other notables
1980 Ferreira is ethereal, almost other-worldly. Not ratings-wise, but stylistically. Very good to excellent.
1983 Ramos Pinto is among the best of that vintage.
1985 Churchill is very good, possibly excellent.

Here in the US the prices of 1980s Ports are starting to climb. Until very recently (pre-COVID), one could acquire even the best of these for $80 - $90 fairly easily, and the secondary names were often $60 - $65. (Those are very good prices for aged VP in the US, just FYI.) TV87 has always been difficult to find and is priced accordingly. Now, though, prices are climbing into the low $100s.

I'm still stocking up on 1980s VPs. Why wouldn't you? Even as the price has started to climb they're still approximately the same price as a new release, yet they are already nicely aged and drinking at or near peak.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Lucas S »

Amazingly thorough post Glenn, I love it.

After reading your comments about it being 90% corked, I saw a 12-case of the '83 Cockburn go for $685 at auction last week and the first thought that popped into my head is that I'd rather buy a $685 2001 Chrysler Sebring Convertible at auction.

It would probably have similar Expected Value.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by BRPetrie »

Thank you so much for the insight - this is wonderful. I recently opened a Croft 85 and was less than pleased with it. The quality wasn't there and there was a sort of twiggy, harshness. The wine itself was acceptable but there was vey little soul.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by mosesbotbol »

'85 Croft use to be a joke, but I think it's come around a lot from reviews a decade or so ago. Ferreira's & Ramos Pinto 1980's vintages are all good. Same for Gould Campbell and some others. It's more of "which 1980's vintages should I avoid?" '83 Cockburn is the most obvious example.
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uncle tom
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by uncle tom »

Cockburn: 1983 is fabulous... provided it isn't corked. Which, sadly, is far too rare.
As it approaches its 40th year, any cork taint should soon vanish as the cork itself becomes saturated. I have proven that TCA is not stable in the body of a wine (at least, a fortified wine) - only in the cork.
Croft: 1985 is fine but not great. Perfectly happy to drink it any time, but it doesn't stand up to competition in a tasting.
Croft 85 suffers an immense amount of bottle variation, some are OK but some are really horrid. This unreliability really compromises this wine.

In general, the Symington houses made decent 1980s, but the others mostly fell short.

1983 was once perceived as being a bit of a weakling, but it seems to be finding itself now - much as '75 did - and I'm confident enough to be hosting a horizontal next year.

The major players - The Symington wines, plus Taylor and Fonseca; all made a decent 1985 VP, but the lesser houses often had problems with VA, which unlike cork taint does not go away - although it seems to evolve a little over time.

The gods really didn't shine on the producers that decade, not only did an alcohol resistant spoilage bug emerge to cause big VA problems in '85 (it seems to have first appeared around '77, but took time to spread) the routine of declaring vintages left them effectively obliged to pass on the best year of the decade - 1987 - and then have to wait for what must have seemed an eternity for another declarable year, many running out of patience and declaring 91, when 92 was better.
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BRPetrie
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by BRPetrie »

Uncletom - I'd be interested know how you proved that cork taint can come and go in a wine, and how you came to that conclusion?
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

uncle tom wrote: 17:53 Thu 06 Oct 2022
Croft: 1985 is fine but not great. Perfectly happy to drink it any time, but it doesn't stand up to competition in a tasting.
Croft 85 suffers an immense amount of bottle variation, some are OK but some are really horrid. This unreliability really compromises this wine.
It seems that I have just been lucky, then. I have opened several myself, and have had the pleasure of tasting a couple that others have opened, and haven't experienced any that could be called "horrid". Generally on the low end of excellent for me, and I don't recall any that were worse than the high end of "very good".
uncle tom wrote: 17:53 Thu 06 Oct 2022 1983 was once perceived as being a bit of a weakling, but it seems to be finding itself now - much as '75 did - and I'm confident enough to be hosting a horizontal next year.
Many years ago after a horizontal I found myself thinking that, as a year, 1983 might actually be better than 1985. I found that while 1985 had a small handful of outstanding Ports, below those few it had very little of interest. And while 1983 had no truly outstanding Ports, it had many in the excellent and very good ranges. I will be very interested in the results of your horizontal next year... we might hold one over here as well.
uncle tom wrote: 17:53 Thu 06 Oct 2022 The major players - The Symington wines, plus Taylor and Fonseca; all made a decent 1985 VP, but the lesser houses often had problems with VA, which unlike cork taint does not go away - although it seems to evolve a little over time.
I haven't experienced this much, either, though admittedly I'm generally drinking one of the major players, and I also don't find low levels of VA that big of a deal. (I'm very sensitive to it, but trace VA is just another tasting note for me.)
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

Lucas S wrote: 06:25 Thu 06 Oct 2022 After reading your comments about it being 90% corked, I saw a 12-case of the '83 Cockburn go for $685 at auction last week and the first thought that popped into my head is that I'd rather buy a $685 2001 Chrysler Sebring Convertible at auction.
Interestingly, we have found that if you just pop-n-pour it is usually very nice. The cork taint - for whatever reason - doesn't seem to start to show for a couple of hours, so if you have Ck83 just drink it right away.

I would have probably paid $685 for a case. But then I'm also immune to TCA, so for me it always tastes amazing. :lol:

(With the help of the Director of the school at World of Wine I have learned how to smell TCA, but for me it just smells like cold, wet/damp slate. It's not offensive at all... it's just a fairly strong mineral note. I still can't taste it at all.)
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by JacobH »

What has long interested me about this decade is that it feels like the start of a transition from each decade having just its customary 3 general declarations to the modern pattern of vintage port being produced almost every year. In particular, the run of years from 1980 to 1987 allowed good vintage port to be made in all but two of them (1981 and 1984) which is much more like the modern practice of extensive declarations in all but the worst years than what happened in the 1970s. The fact that the shippers didn’t have the confidence to declare 1987 shows how new this was to them. I think the run of declarations at the end of the 2010s shows they have learnt that lesson, especially with the hindsight of having to wait quite some time before another good year.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by uncle tom »

I'd be interested know how you proved that cork taint can come and go in a wine, and how you came to that conclusion?
It started with a casual observation that I'd never had a corked '55. This turned into a trawl of tasting notes which revealed that reports of corked port bottles stopped appearing when bottles approached their 40th year - the same time that the wine fully saturates the cork. There are a very few exceptions, but these can put down either to the bottle being mis-identified as corked, or late released bottles that were re-corked by the producers.

This then turned into an appeal for corked bottles. After re-sealing them with new corks I found that after six months the TCA had gone.

I still want people to save corked bottles for me - or re-seal themselves - to see how long it actually takes for the TCA to vanish. I'm also hoping to find corked table wines to play with, but as luck would have it I've not encountered a single one since I started researching this.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

uncle tom wrote: 17:11 Mon 10 Oct 2022 I still want people to save corked bottles for me - or re-seal themselves - to see how long it actually takes for the TCA to vanish. I'm also hoping to find corked table wines to play with, but as luck would have it I've not encountered a single one since I started researching this.
Are there kits or tools available to re-seal bottles without using a cork? Some sort of appropriate shrink-wrap plastic followed by a healthy waxing would probably do it, provided the plastic in question was a type that wouldn't itself affect the Port.

Re-corking with a cork, even one thought to be TCA-free, would introduce variability into the results. And since this wouldn't be for long-term storage, one wouldn't have to allow cork-level oxygen transmissibility.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by PhilW »


uncle tom wrote:reports of corked port bottles stopped appearing when bottles approached their 40th year - the same time that the wine fully saturates the cork. There are a very few exceptions, but these can put down either to the bottle being mis-identified as corked, or late released bottles that were re-corked by the producers.
I should have reported one bottle which doesn't fit the above, which was a bottle of Sandeman 1935 opened near the start of the year which was heavily TCA, sufficiently so we barely touched it (very sadly, since it was the only bottle I own, a wine I love, and I had saved it for a special occasion); definitely the original cork and wax. I'm afraid I'd forgotten your request to save such.


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uncle tom
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by uncle tom »

Are there kits or tools available to re-seal bottles without using a cork? Some sort of appropriate shrink-wrap plastic followed by a healthy waxing would probably do it, provided the plastic in question was a type that wouldn't itself affect the Port.

Re-corking with a cork, even one thought to be TCA-free, would introduce variability into the results. And since this wouldn't be for long-term storage, one wouldn't have to allow cork-level oxygen transmissibility.
For the purpose of letting TCA clear, there is no compelling need to lay the bottle down again. Ideally, a little inert gas - e.g. CO2 - should be used to displace the air before re-sealing. If the means to insert a driven cork is not available, a salvaged T stopper from another bottle should work just fine.
I should have reported one bottle which doesn't fit the above, which was a bottle of Sandeman 1935 opened near the start of the year which was heavily TCA, sufficiently so we barely touched it (very sadly, since it was the only bottle I own, a wine I love, and I had saved it for a special occasion); definitely the original cork and wax. I'm afraid I'd forgotten your request to save such.
Another possible route to an exception would be the event of the bottle having spent most of its life upright, denying the wine the chance to permeate the cork.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by idj123 »

Getting back on topic, two more (that I don’t believe have been mentioned thus far) to add to the 80s pantheon:

the too rarely seen Ni80 and the RP82 (which I think is better than the 83)
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by MigSU »

idj123 wrote: 17:10 Tue 11 Oct 2022 Getting back on topic, two more (that I don’t believe have been mentioned thus far) to add to the 80s pantheon:

the too rarely seen Ni80 and the RP82 (which I think is better than the 83)
Can attest to the quality of the RP82, opened two bottles recently and both were quite pleasant to drink.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by uncle tom »

the too rarely seen Ni80 and the RP82 (which I think is better than the 83)
Two producers who rather neglected the UK market at that time.

I have a nice stash of Niepoort 80 and it certainly drinks very well, but can't ever recall seeing the Ramos Pinto '82 offered.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by mosesbotbol »

It's interesting to compare an '83 or '85 Graham were twenty years ago against how a '94 Graham tastes today. The '83 & '85 seemed more mature than the '94 does today. Better/cleaner wine making & higher quality spirit?
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Mike J. W. »

MigSU wrote: 17:31 Tue 11 Oct 2022
idj123 wrote: 17:10 Tue 11 Oct 2022 Getting back on topic, two more (that I don’t believe have been mentioned thus far) to add to the 80s pantheon:

the too rarely seen Ni80 and the RP82 (which I think is better than the 83)
Can attest to the quality of the RP82, opened two bottles recently and both were quite pleasant to drink.
I'm glad to hear that about the RP '82. I picked up 10 bottles recently at auction.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

I've never had RP82, but love RP83 so if they're of comparable quality I'd have picked up those 10 bottles, too! Nice score!
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

Going back to Ben’s original question, yes it’s worth accumulating the 1980s Ports. Be selective. Be prepared to either take a risk or to avoid something which might disappoint.

Wines I would avoid because of my experience with them are anything from Cockburn due to VA or TCA (although I’ve never experienced this with the 1987 Tua) and Croft 1985 (VA). I’m also on a bad run with halves of D83 and D85.

I’d also avoid F80, but only because it’s not a great wine. Perhaps it’s one for you to buy and try so you can make up your own mind.
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by PhilW »

Alex Bridgeman wrote: 14:24 Wed 22 Feb 2023 I’d also avoid F80, but only because it’s not a great wine. Perhaps it’s one for you to buy and try so you can make up your own mind.
The last bottle of F80 I had was delicious, but looking back at my tasting notes of 1980 vintage port, my top two highest rated bottles of 1980 vintage port are both F80, but so are several of my (equal) lowest; it seems to be either mediocre or lovely. By comparison, W80 has my highest mean rating of 1980 vintage port, and seems to be consistently decent, so is probably the safer/better QPR, but... I suppose it's similar to D77 in that way - a lovely wine when good but ~30% of bottles are riddled with TCA, so do you take the chance? Buy/bid accordingly (which for me means just occasional bottles of either, but I love it when they're good).
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by Glenn E. »

Alex Bridgeman wrote: 14:24 Wed 22 Feb 2023 I’d also avoid F80, but only because it’s not a great wine. Perhaps it’s one for you to buy and try so you can make up your own mind.
In my experience, F80 is often very similar to Fr80. Which makes for a very strange Fonseca, but still leaves an often quite nice Ferreira-like Port.

Don't go in expecting a Fonseca, though. You will almost certainly be disappointed.
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uncle tom
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Re: The 1980s & quality

Post by uncle tom »

F80 in my book is an OK VP, but far from typical for a Fonseca and trades for well above its worth.

W80 is typically 10% cheaper, and 100% better.
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