There will be a new wine festival in Copenhagen dedicated to all types of Fortified wines, including Port wines. The Festival will take place on April 30 at the New Theater in Copenhagen and is hosted by Henrik Oldenburg, also arranging the annual Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen.
Since some years Henrik has arranged a Sherry festival, but he now decided to extend it to also include all other types of Fortified wines like Madeira, Marsala, Malaga, Moscatel, Port wine and even more.
Tickets are bought directly from the organizer here: Forlaget Smag.
This year the Festival, on November 21 took place at the New Theater instead of at Børsen (which was damaged in a fire in April 2024). The new location worked well and the Festival was as usual well visited. It was nice to see that some brands that have been missing during the last years were now represented by the Danish importers, so there was even more port to taste than usual.
We focused on the Vintage Ports and there were quite many from the latest released Vintage, 2022, which is not generally declared but there are still some great Ports. Both Niepoort 2022 and Quinta de Vargellas (Taylor’s) 2022 are really impressive and both Quinta da Cavadinha (Warre’s) and Quinta da Romaneira are as usual well made ports that impress. This time we were also impressed by Quinta S Luiz (Kopke) 2022 and Quinta do Arnozelo (Burmester) 2022) that both are well made ports which will be nice to taste again when more mature.
Great selection of Taylor’s Vintage Ports
Quinta dos Canais 2014
Many importers of course also brought some older Vintage Ports and it was for instance possible to taste Sandeman Vintage Port from both 1967 and 1977, a good opportunity for anyone that wants to understand what a truly mature Vintage Port can be like when at its best!
For those who loves Colheita, it was possible to taste some lovely old creations like Maynard 1974 and 1963, Barros 1974 and Andresen 1968.
The annual Bordeaux tasting held by Theis Wine in Copenhagen was this year held at Moltkes Palae. As usual the event was superbly organized. There were many more wines than you can taste in the two and a half hours available, so we focused on the classified Medoc wines and had to skip most of the wines from outside Bordeaux.
Moltkes Palae
The 2023 Vintage resulted, for many producers, in larger quantities compared to the previous vintages, which contributes to overall reduced prices. But what about the quality? Well, this tasting showed that, the producers who successfully handled the changing weather conditions also delivered magnificent wines, but not all producers came up to the same high standards. Among the Chateaux’s we liked the most were Ch Cos d’Estournel, Ch Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Ch Pichon Baron au Baron de Pichon-Longueville, and Ch Lafitte Rothschild but we also very much liked Lynch Bages and Cos Labory. Cos Labory was recently bought by neighboring Cos d’Estournel and the quality of this wine has already improved.
If you plan to buy some 2023 for the cellar, which can be a good idea given the prices, we recommend to either taste the wine yourself or check tasting notes from a source you trust.
Finally, we have to mention that we as usual ended the tasting with Niepoort’s superb Vintage Ports, this time the latest released Vintage 2022.
Soon it is time for the annual Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen. As usual the festival is arranged by Henrik Oldenburg. Due to the fire at Børsen, the event has been moved both in time and place. The event will take place on Monday November 18 at Det Ny Teater in Copenhagen.
As usual Theis Vine arrange a fantastic tasting of the latest vintage of Bordeaux wines. We are sure many port lovers also love great Bordeaux wines, and this is a great opportunity for all of you to try Bordeaux vintage 2023 already now. There are as usual a wide range of other very good wines to taste as well.
The event will this year take place at Moltkes Palæ in Copenhagen on the 5th of September. Tickets are available from Theis Vine here.
This year we thought it would be nice to taste all Vintage Ports from 1994 again. At 30 years of age also the slowest matured should be in a phase where they have opened up enough to fully enjoy them. This turned out to be true, all ports were in a good stage even if there is a significant difference in maturity between the wines of the more faster maturing producers and the more slowly maturing.
For the tasting we had collected 49 different Vintage Ports. We have ranked the 1994 vintage as an Outstanding, and there are for sure in many of the top producers that have made impressive Vintage Ports that will also keep well for some more decades in the cellar. There are however also quite many that do not live up to the general reputation of 1994 and are already peaking or even past the peak. After all it was still a wonderful tasting with many extraordinary wines. The clear winner was Quinta do Vesuvio, which got the highest score from almost all of the participants in the tasting.
Vesuvio 1994
Most of the top producers, like Fonseca, Taylor, Graham and Warre also ended up in the top ten. Some surprises in the top ten were Skeffington and Quinta do Sagrado from Calem.
All tasting notes, ranking and points can be found here.
The port wine fair in Leverkusen, organized by Axel Probst and the World of Port was as usual very well organized with many good producers of port, showing their last vintage port as well as some older samples. The fair was held on November 24, 2023.
The Douro Boys
In addition to the fair there was also a master class with the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys is a cooperation between some of the best independent producers of Douro wines and Port. It was formed in 2003, mainly in order to promote the Douro table wines that was fairly new at the time. The Douro Boys includes Quinta do Vallado, Van Zellers & Co., Quinta do Vale Meão, Quinta do Crasto and Niepoort.
At the master class we tasted the Douro Boys Vintage port 2011 and 2017 as well as a bottle from one selected vintage port from each producer. The Douro Boys Vintage Port is a blend of wines from the five produces and are produced in a very limited quantity and only on Magnums. Only 250 magnums were made of the Douro Boys Vintage Port 2011 and only 350 magnums were made of the 2017 vintage port.
For tasting notes, see the wines tasted on November 23 and 24 here.
Due to Covid, some of the family was ill on December 23 these last couple of years, when we were about to hold our Christmas tasting. Something we’ve written about on our website in January 2022 and January 2021.
But on the first of August this year, we finally managed to gather the family, something we had looked forward to. We kicked off the evening with two champagnes: Blanc de Blanc Sillery Grand Cru 2015 from Francois Secondé, and Brut Epernay 2004 from Alfred Gratien. To accompany the starter, we had Clos de la Coulée de Serrant 1992 from Joly, Savennières, Loire and Clos des Chevaliers 2011 from Jean Charton. The main course was served with Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1952 and Ch. Margeaux 1952, and the dessert was enjoyed with Burmester and Sandeman Vintage Port – both from 1922. It was a marvelous, but very late, Christmas meal.
This December, we did not want to miss another Christmas, so we started our tasting already on the 22nd of December with Lilbert’s Champagne Cramant 2018, Blanc de Blanc, Grand Cru. To the starter, salmon and shrimp pie, we had a Chablis Premier Cru Troesmes 2018 by Le Domaine d’Henri and Clos de la Coulee de Serrant 2003. With the main course, a delicious deer, we enjoyed Ch. Margeaux and Ch. Haut Brion – both from 1973 – and with the cheese: Taylor and Fonseca Vintage Port from 1963.
On the 23rd of December, we finally had our great Christmas dinner, all 15 of us – the entire family. We started off with J. Lassalle’s Cuvee Angeline Prem Cru 2009 and Marie-Noelle Ledru’s Viticultrice Grand Cru from 2010. We had smoked heart from ox, reindeer, and elk, and with that we enjoyed Ch. Lafite Rothschild, Ch. Latour and Ch. Cheval Blanc – all from 1973. The main course was fish (witch flounder), which was served with the following wines: Clos Ste Hune 1991 from Trimbach, Alsace, Ch. Laville Haut Brion 1976 from Grave and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 2017 from Fontaine-Gagnard in Chassagne Montrachet.
The dessert was a Charlotte Russe cake and with it, we enjoyed Vintage Port Ramos Pinto and Hooper 1923 and Royal Oporto 1868. It was a marvelous meal and evening!
Due to a certain Celebration Day, we decided to have a Great Tasting with our Wine Club “The 18%” on the 5th of November, together with our German port wine friends. This meant that they could continue to the Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen on the next day.
Dow has always been one of my favorite houses. I fell in love with it at one of my first tastings, when I was offered Dow 1912. This was in Hans Just’s wine cellar, in January 1983, at the Port Wine Club in Copenhagen (est 1981).
After that, my family and I have been drinking some wonderful Dow, such as 1904, 1912, 1946, 1950, 1954 and 1962. At this tasting, I intended to serve all the Dow I had in my cellar between 1890 and 1997, because we believed that 24 port was enough for the tasting. Here are our Tastings Results.
This years festival, on November 6, started with a master class led by Christian Seely, owner of Quinta da Romaneira, and also Managing Director of Quinta do Noval (owned by AXA’s Millésimes).
In 2004 Christian Seely bought Quinta da Romaneira together with several other investors. Today only one other investor remains. After several years of replanting and renovation the Quinta has improved the quality of their wines a lot. They produce not only Port Wine but also good table wines, both white and red of which we got to taste some nice examples.
From the companies Tawny Port Wine range we got to taste the 10 years old Tawny, the 40 years old Tawny and a Colheita 2007. All very good ports in their category. Of the Vintage Ports we were served the latest release, i.e. Vintage Port 2021 together with the 2016 and 2007. Both 2016 and 2007 are fantastic vintages and they are still youthful and will improve a lot with longer cellaring. The 2021 shows some impressive dark fruit and is very promising indeed.
Overall it was a perfect start on the day and Mr. Seely is always very entertaining when presenting the wines. Also thanks, JP & Troels from the Danish importers VintagePortvin.dk
In the tasting room we focused, as always, on the Vintage Ports and this year there were just above 55 different to choose from – impressive. A wide range of brands and producers were represented, many smaller producers like Quinta da Devesa, Kranemann and Quinta da Trovisca have not been doing Vintage Ports for very long, but also well-known houses like Dow’s, Warre’s, Sandeman and Niepoort were represented. Overall it was as usual a great event and you can find all the tasting notes here on our web site.
