2011 Formally declared

[uncle tom]

Yesterday (21st) saw the formal declaration of the 2011 vintage in Porto, and the world presentation of the vintage.

The day commenced with a blind tasting of 56 VPs, with the opportunity to recap and revisit, sighted, after lunch.

Mindful of my experiance with these wines at the BFT, I decided to adopt a strict and consistant method of assessment.

I assessed each flight on nose, then intensity, then mouthfeel, spitting and clearing my mouth with water between each wine. After making an initial assessment, I then took tiny sips which I swallowed, to fine tune the results. I retained reference glasses when the flights were changed, to ensure my assessment didn't drift during the course of the event.

When the blind tasting was complete, we were given a card identifying the wines.

The biggest surprise was the way some houses that have traditionally majored on tawnies and traded in the third division of VPs have produced some seriously good wines - Dalva and Burmester in particular. Also of note is that the independant producers are no longer trying to catch up with the big name brands, but have caught up and in some cases surpassed them.

Of the TFP brands, Taylor is a solid and sound wine, with typical signature, but scored no higher than Offley and Quevedo. Vista Alegre and Vale Meao also matched Taylor's score.

I wasn't greatly wowed by Fonseca at the BFT, where others thought otherwise. Here it also failed to light my fire.

Croft got a very poor rating from me in the blind tasting, and I revisited it later during the sighted session. There again it failed to impress, but seemed to come round a little after time in the glass. It may be just too young at this stage.

Of the Symington brands, Warre did poorly blind, but showed much better later - a duff bottle, I think. Dow is typically dour - a very sound wine, but not for drinking young. Grahams seemed a bit lacking, and others concurred. There was the feeling that the Stone Terraces wine may have stolen some of its thunder (which got my third best score in the blind session)

My methodology should have produced a good result from Vesuvio, but in the event the blind session delivered a score that was marginally below average. Capela came in equal fourth on my blind rankings, but others in the room who were served from a different bottle picked up VA. I tried the Capela again later in the sighted session, and picked up a faint trace of VA. Worrying.

Cockburn and Smith Woodhouse were sound, middle ranking players.

Noval was a good wine, but not the star turn we saw in 2007.

Niepoort has made no concession to those who would drink VP young. Both the Niepoort and the Bioma are sturdy beasts, that Dirk's grandchildren will be justly proud of.

My leader table from the blind session ran:

1st - Crasto
2nd - Passadouro
3rd - Graham stone terraces
4th equal - Vesuvio Capela and Burmester

It might seem from these notes that the big players have rather fallen down on this vintage. They haven't. The sheer number of seriously good ports from this vintage is without precedent, and it will surely be hailed as a landmark vintage for many years to come.

[jdaw1]

Congratulations on being invited!

Please do post all scores.