Vintage Charts

[Portman]

Please forgive if this has been addressed elsewhere on the forum.

Most of the major wine critics publish vintage charts that apply subjective ratings to various vintages. My beef with them (at least with Spectator, Decanter, and Parker) is that in the case of Port they either ignore most non-declared years or have wildly different evaluations for selected non vintage years. The overall impression is that Port is given short shrift at the major publications. In addition, to focus on just the declared years seems incredibly short sighted as the whole declaration process is ah, how do I say, suspect, given that I dont believe there have ever been two declared vintages in a row. I guess 1991 and 1992 come close but I think that both years were split, right? The point is that there are very good years that are not declared because they had the bad luck of following after a vintage year, like 1995.

Is there consensus here among the port cognoscente on what are truly the vintages worth seeking out, the mediocre, and the ones that were unequivical busts, say in the last 30 years?

I want to get a better sense of those 1995-type years so I can do some smarter port buying. I've had some great 1995s that delivered monumental values. The 1995 Fonseca Guimaraens and Smith Woodhouse Madalena come to mind. Both were delicious and reasonable.

[Glenn E.]

1987 was not generally declared, but probably should have been. You can find some very good values from that year.

2005 was not generally declared, but probably could have been. (It's a little early to say "should" for the 2005s.) Vesuvio in particular is an excellent 2005 Port.

I'm sure there are others... those two just came to mind immediately for me.

[Portman]

Thanks Glenn. I have a soft spot for Vesuvio and I didnt know that about the 2005s. Bill

[g-man]

Thanks Glenn. I have a soft spot for Vesuvio and I didnt know that about the 2005s. Bill

I believe AHB is our resident vesuvio nut btw ...

[Portman]

Vesuvio nut is a worthy title.

I did an impulsive thing. My memories of the 95 Smith Woodhouse got me salivating, and I found and bought a case for $29 a bottle from an online shop in New Jersey. I am low on cellar defenders and this purchase will tide me over for awhile.

I posted my original SW 1995 tasting note since I didnt see a TN for it in the site archives.

[DRT]

If you enjoy the SW-M95 you should seek out the same wine from 1988. Excellent value.

Other good non-classic years I have had good experiences with are 1978 and 1996. The SQVPs from split declarations, such as 1991/92, are also worth looking out for as the shippers could arguably have declared back to back classic vintages in those years so the juice that went into the SQVPs may have been better than average.

[uncle tom]

Vintage charts, such as those published by Decanter, tend to make me cringe..

There are two ways to look at a vintage:

a) what was actually made

b) what could have been

In declared years, the producers generally make a very tight selection; but in the undeclared years, they often produce much greater quantities of single quinta vintage ports, and the resulting lack of selection mitigates against the quality of the product.

Despite that factor, vintages like '87 show that the vintage should have been declared. Had the wines from that year had the benefit of a tight selection, it might well have been the top vintage of the decade.

Producing a vintage chart on a site like this might provoke some argument, but given that Decanter still has 2002 labelled as a 'drink now' vintage - a ludicrous descriptor.. - we should perhaps consider having a guide here..

Tom

[DRT]

Producing a vintage chart on a site like this might provoke some argument, but given that Decanter still has 2002 labelled as a 'drink now' vintage - a ludicrous descriptor.. - we should perhaps consider having a guide here.

Agreed.

What elements should the Vintage Chart contain? Should it be only the collective view of those here or do we include info from other charts? I would be happy to pull together a chart showing the opinions of a number of critics that we could add our own opinions to. Would that be helpful?

[Portman]

I have to say discovering this site has been quite satisfying for me. I drink and share wine with a very nice online and offline group of people but none of them enjoy port like I do. You guys have the passion, expertise, and clearly tolerate esoteric exercises like this one.

Cheers to you, Bill

[DRT]

You guys have the passion, expertise, and clearly tolerate esoteric exercises like this one.

Bill,

Just wait until you meet and get to know us - it's much worse than you think!!

Amongst our group we have a man who spends his evenings re-constructing corks from the fragments drawn from ancient and not so ancient port bottles. We have people who collect empty bottles, collect labels, collect corks, photograph sediment, worry about the number of typefaces used on port labels, use compressed air to assist uncorking, design and build new styles of port tongs, design "the ideal decanter" (yet to be built), campaign for the laws on bottle sizes to be changed, produce replacement port labels and many, many more.

Do you have any little secrets to add to this list that you are comfortable to share now that you are amongst like-minded geeks?

Derek

[KillerB]

I'd like to make two points:

1. Portman is patently at home here;

2. I was going to whinge that nobody had mentioned 1987 until I saw Glenn and Tom's messages and now feel slightly silly.

That's all.

[DRT]

1800 - Bad
1801 - Bad
1802 - Good
1803 - Good
1804 - Good
1805 - Ordinary
1806 - Very good
1807 - Ordinary
1808 - Ordinary
1809 - Ordinary
1810 - Good
1811 - Good
1812 - Very good
1813 - Ordinary
1814 - Ordinary
1815 - Very good indeed
1816 - Ordinary
1817 - Ordinary
1818 - Very Bad
1819 - Bad
1820 - Very good indeed
1821 - Good
1822 - Good
1823 - Fair
1824 - Bad
1825 - Bad
1826 - Ordinary
1827 - Good
1828 - Ordinary
1829 - Bad
1830 - Good
1831 - Bad
1832 - Bad
1833 - Ordinary
1834 - Very fine indeed
1835 - Ordinary
1836 - Bad
1837 - Bad
1838 - Bad
1839 - Bad
1840 - Very fine indeed
1841 - Bad
1842 - Good
1843 - Fair
1844 - Very fine indeed
1845 - Fair
1846 - Good
1847 - Very fine indeed
1848 - Bad
1849 - Ordinary
1850 - Good
1851 - Very good
1852 - Ordinary
1853 - Good
1854 - Good
1855 - Ordinary
1856 - Good
1857 - Good
1858 - Very fine indeed
1859 - Fair
1860 - Good
1861 - Good
1862 - Fair
1863 - Very fine indeed
1864 - Ordinary
1865 - Good
1866 - Ordinary
1867 - Good
1868 - Very fine indeed
1869 - Ordinary
1870 - Good
1871 - Bad
1872 - Good
1873 - Good
1874 - Bad
1875 - Very good
1876 - Bad
1877 - Ordinary
1878 - Very good
1879 - Bad
1880 - Ordinary
1881 - Good
1882 - Very fair
1883 - Bad
1884 - Very good
1885 - Fair
1886 - Bad
1887 - Very good
1888 - Good
1889 - Ordinary
1890 - Good
1891 - Very fair
1892 - Good
1893 - Bad
1894 - Very fair
1895 - Bad
1896 - Very fine indeed
1897 - Good
1898 - Ordinary
1899 - Ordinary
1900 - Very good
1901 - Fair
1902 - Fair
1903 - Bad
1904 - Very good
1905 - Bad
1906 - Very fair
1907 - Ordinary
1908 - Very fine indeed
1909 - Ordinary
1910 - Fair
1911 - Very fair
1912 - Very fine indeed
1913 - Ordinary
1914 - Ordinary
1915 - Fair
1916 - Good
1917 - Good
1918 - Poor
1919 - Bad
1920 - Good
1921 - Fair
1922 - Good
1923 - Fair
1924 - Good
1925 - Fair
1926 - Fair
1927 - Very good
1928 - Ordinary
1929 - Fair
1930 - Fair
1931 - Very good
1932 - Bad
1933 - Very fair
1934 - Very fair

Unfortunately, Geoffrey did not leave instructions as to which of the above vintages sould be laid down and which are in their "drink up" phase.

[JacobH]

1800 - Bad
[!]
1934 - Very fair

Apparently it’s been downhill all the way from 1820!

I’m curious as to how the two hierarchies of ‟fair”, ‟very fair” and ‟very fair indeed” and ‟good”, ‟very good” and ‟very good indeed” mesh together. ‟Good” seems unlikely to be better than ‟very fair indeed”; though ‟good” must be better than ‟fair”. (Unless, of course, ‟fair” refers to the colour).

[g-man]

1800 - Bad
[!]
1934 - Very fair

Apparently it’s been downhill all the way from 1820!

I’m curious as to how the two hierarchies of ‟fair”, ‟very fair” and ‟very fair indeed” and ‟good”, ‟very good” and ‟very good indeed” mesh together. ‟Good” seems unlikely to be better than ‟very fair indeed”; though ‟good” must be better than ‟fair”. (Unless, of course, ‟fair” refers to the colour).

"indeed"!

[DRT]

Would it be useful to create something like this covering many critics/authors over the past 2 centuries or more?

Vintage Chart.jpg (42.57 KiB) Viewed 9198 times

[uncle tom]

That's probably the best approach..

.. how about this tentative categorisation for the last 50 vintages? - I'm sure everyone will have a different opinion as to which years should be classed as which, but this is hopefully not too far removed from a consensus view.

(For good measure, I've included all the vintages, assuming that any wines that might turn up from duff years like '71 & '73 are going to be drink soon candidates)

Keep - 06/05/04/03/02/01/00/99/98/97/96/95/92
Keep or drink - 94/93/91/87/85
Drink - 90/89/88/83/82/80/70/66
Start drinking up - 86/78/77/67/64/63/60/58
Drink soon - 84/81/79/76/75/74/73/72/71/69/68/65/62/61/59/57

Tom

[KillerB]

That's probably the best approach..

.. how about this tentative categorisation for the last 50 vintages? - I'm sure everyone will have a different opinion as to which years should be classed as which, but this is hopefully not too far removed from a consensus view.

(For good measure, I've included all the vintages, assuming that any wines that might turn up from duff years like '71 & '73 are going to be drink soon candidates)

Keep - 06/05/04/03/02/01/00/99/98/97/96/95/92
Keep or drink - 94/93/91/87/85
Drink - 90/89/88/83/82/80/70/66
Start drinking up - 86/78/77/67/64/63/60/58
Drink soon - 84/81/79/76/75/74/73/72/71/69/68/65/62/61/59/57

Tom

I'd like to point out that from the other Alex's point of view, he maybe wondering which centuries you are talking about.

[Portman]

So 1987, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 2005 are all worth a look.

How about any stinker years in the last 30? Any years that you just steer clear of?

[g-man]

So 1987, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 2005 are all worth a look.

How about any stinker years in the last 30? Any years that you just steer clear of?

1975

[Glenn E.]

How about any stinker years in the last 30?

1975

New from Mattel: the g-man Barbie doll!

"Math is hard!"

[g-man]

How about any stinker years in the last 30?

1975

New from Mattel: the g-man Barbie doll!

"Math is hard!"

heh, it's hard for us approaching 30 to realize what "in the last 30 years" actually means ...
to you old folk though, I can see you had the time to sit down and ponder it =)

[jdaw1]

New from Mattel: the g-man Barbie doll!

Have I mentioned that Barbie is not skinny?

How about any stinker years in the last 30? Any years that you just steer clear of?

1975: despite the arithmetic pedantry, is widely available, of variable pricing, and terrible.
1982: less often seen, and also terrible.
1983: this vintage is sometimes dearer than the 1985, sometimes cheaper. When dearer, drink ’85 instead.
1993: declared only by Quinta das Liceiras for the idiot birth-year market. With horrible label included.
1895: (ditto) never what it claims to be.

[uncle tom]

Any years that you just steer clear of?

- Vintage ports at first release are almost always over-priced, often severely so, so avoid anything under five years old.

- Some years get over-hyped and over-priced. While opinions differ about 1992, there is little doubt that the prices are still a bit too high, even though they have fallen over the last year. 1994 was a little overpriced, but most of the wines now look good value. 1977 is somewhat over-valued, while 1970 is generally excellent value.

- Some vintages are very variable:

There are a few good '75's, such as Fonseca, Croft & Quarles Harris. Taylor and Graham are reasonable, but over-priced. Most of the others are rubbish.

1980 has a few excellent wines, notably Dow & Graham; but most of the others are nothing to write home about.

1982 has been much dismissed as a vintage, but I found the Croft to be very pleasant when I tried one last year - need to try more..

- 1987 is a year to look out for - as it was not generally declared, the wines command modest prices, yet they are showing very well now, if still a bit young.

- Some producers have a reputation that excessively propels their prices, while for others, the reverse is often true:

The name Taylor ensures a high price, even though some of their wines are pretty unexciting - such as '75,'80 & '83

On the other hand, the association of Cockburn (in the UK) with cheap port spoils its reputation for vintage port; making great wines like the '63 and '70 outstanding value.

Croft also suffers in the UK from the association of it's name with cheap Sherry. Croft is actually a very reliable brand (along with Graham) - with few embarassing wines in its history.

And finally, as a simple aide memoire, Offley is very often offley good value..

Tom

[JacobH]

How about any stinker years in the last 30?

1975
[...]
1895

Suddenly the problems which caused the recession come into focus

[Alex Bridgeman]

I do like the idea that we pull together our own view of the vintage charts for vintage port. This could be based on a combination of (a) literature search and (b) our own experience with (b) counting for more than (a). The reason for this is that the literature assesments for the vintages often is based on early impressions and our experience is based on actually drinking the wines.

I would also back this up with a "drink now, drink later" recommendation to give a table along the lines of:

1987 - literature view of an average quality year - consensus view of a good / very good year - drink now or hold for 10+ years
1988 - literature view of a below average quality year - consensus view of a below average / average year - drink now or hold for 10 years
etc.

Doing things this was also gives us hours of entertainment in debating whether or not a particular year should be consensus view of average or of below average quality.

What fun. Shall we choose a decade to start with? How about starting with the 1980s to accommodate Bill's request for vintages in the last 30 years? Here're my thoughts on that decade:

1980 - above average / good; drink now or hold the best for 10 years
1981 - never tried
1982 - below average; drink up
1983 - good; drink weaker now or hold better for 10+ years
1984 - below average; drink up
1985 - above average / good but many suffer from VA; drink up over the next 10 years
1986 - average; drink up or hold 10 years
1987 - good / very good; hold for 10 years
1988 - above average / good; drink or hold for 10+ years
1989 - below average / average; drink up
(note that I have specified the century, to prevent others from becoming as confused as I was earlier)

Bill - in terms of recent vintages to hunt out, 1998 is impressing be considerably at the moment. Strong and powerful wines which are extremely youthful right now.

Alex

[Portman]

Great answers, thanks everyone.

Another observation I've noticed here. It seems like a lot of you are extremely patient with your ports, giving the vintage ports something like 30 years to mature, whereas previously I had been shooting for 20 as a rule of thumb.

Is it the case that most of you wait for a longer time? I personally like them with the integration and smoothness that time delivers, but I also sometimes like them grapey and fresh.

And as a larger point, to buy a young vintage and cellar it for 30 years, what an exercise in delayed gratification! It makes the 10 year wait for Bordeaux pedestrian!

[g-man]

It just means you don't buy enough port =)

I've stocked my cellars at 50% > 90s
40% >70s
and 10% < 70s

Which hopefully equates to my drink the ready stuff now while the younger stuff sits =) I do need to pick up more < 70s tho.

[uncle tom]

Is it the case that most of you wait for a longer time?

The average age of the bottles I casually quaff at home has been getting a little older - I see little point in tackling bottles that are not fully mature, when I have plenty of oldies on hand.

So far this year, the average age of the vintage ports I have drunk at home has been just under 35yrs; and although I will stray a little to each side, the great majority of the bottles I open at home will range between 1960 and 1983.

Tom

[Glenn E.]

I personally prefer to wait until a good Port has at least 30 years of age before even bothering, but that's because to me they need at least 40 and often 50 years to really reach their peak. In another 5 years you'll have a prime example of why 20 years is insufficent for good Port - at that time the 1994s will have reached "maturity" according to that rule of thumb, and my guess is that they'll be nowhere near ready. (Possibly a bad example, because I suspect they're not going to be anywhere near maturity at 30 years either.)

However, I have also discovered that I enjoy very young Vintage Ports also. The kind that make Derek weep. For this purpose, the 2003s are starting to get a bit too old as some of them seem like they may be starting to close down to me. (Not much... just starting.)

Any Vintage Port in between just seems off to me. Luckily it's not too hard for me to wait, because I generally prefer tawnies anyway. Those can be picked up any time and consumed immediately.

[uncle tom]

Those can be picked up any time and consumed immediately.

Yes, but even they usually benefit from a decade or so in bottle..

Tom

[Alex Bridgeman]

Great answers, thanks everyone.

Another observation I've noticed here. It seems like a lot of you are extremely patient with your ports, giving the vintage ports something like 30 years to mature, whereas previously I had been shooting for 20 as a rule of thumb.

Is it the case that most of you wait for a longer time? I personally like them with the integration and smoothness that time delivers, but I also sometimes like them grapey and fresh.

And as a larger point, to buy a young vintage and cellar it for 30 years, what an exercise in delayed gratification! It makes the 10 year wait for Bordeaux pedestrian!

It's a really personal thing, how you prefer your port. My preference is for either really young (like Glenn, I think the 2003s are now past this point) or with some maturity. I quite enjoy the 1994s and have a suspicion which will be tested later in the year that the 1991s are now opening up for drinking but most of the bottles I open at home come from the '70s and '80s. However, I can't wait that long for them so it really is a case of trying to stock a cellar that reflects my drinking habits.

[Glenn E.]

Those can be picked up any time and consumed immediately.

Yes, but even they usually benefit from a decade or so in bottle..

A theory I will be testing this weekend when I open my 1963 Romariz Colheita which was bottled in 1997.

[DRT]

My PC is bust so I cannot combine these with the previous lists but will do so later...

ALS Vintage Ratings.jpg (414.96 KiB) Viewed 4509 times

[KillerB]

Whay would anybody mark out of seven? Tell you what I'll do all of mine out of 13, that'll confuse the hell out of you. I'll also make it logarithmic to base 17.

[uncle tom]

Whay would anybody mark out of seven?

Why not - a little more precise than marks out of five, and less fussy than marks out of ten..

Fascinating to read through

Thanks Derek

Tom

[jdaw1]

Whay would anybody mark out of seven?.

What proportion of the week should one be willing to drink it?