Author Archives: Stefan

Tasting of the 1984 Vintage

The Wine Society 18% had a Semi-Great Tasting 19 February 2015 of the Vintage 1984. We call it Semi-Great because we had only 16 Vintages and not 20 Vintages which is our limit for calling it a Great Tasting.

One member of our Society wanted in 2014 to celebrate the vintage of 1984 but unfortunately we had no opportunity during this last year why the celebration was now instead.

This Vintage was an off vintage, and was judged by us as Good (see our Vintage Rating).

Only 15 houses declared this vintage according to our knowledge. Michael Broadbent gave this vintage 2* out of 5*, and Suckling gave it 81 points out of 100 points.

The vintage made some very attractive wines, but it is not surprising none of the major houses declared 1984. We think the wines are rather lean and one-dimensional, but some are very attractive and worth hunting and some will even develop a little more which surprise us.

For tasting notes and more information about this tasting see here.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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As you may have read, most ports enjoyed by us are at home with the family. At Christmas of course the family is joining at home and we always enjoy a lot of great food and great wine together. This year we started at the 21^st of December with vintage Brut 2000 Cuvee Nicholas from Bilcart-Salmon and after that duck liver mousse together with Suduiraut 2006.

On the 22^nd we ate warm goat cheese with honey together with Gewürztraminer Trockenbeerenauslese Selection 1980 from Lenz Moser in Rust, Austria and after that warm smoked salmon together with L’Homme Mort Prem. Cru from F.Gueguen in Chablis and then dessert with a port i.e. Vintage Quinta Vale D. Maria 2001. Lillejul

On the 23^rd we started with Champagne, vintage 1983 Salon. After that a breast and terrine of teal together with Ch. Corton Grancey from Louis Latour, then filé of red deer together with DRC’s Richbourg 1984 and Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1943 and as dessert orange cheese cake with dulce de leche together with Vintage Port Quinta do Noval 1934 and No 1 Especial Vinha Velha 1834 from Quinta de Romariz.

On Christmas Eve we had traditional Swedish Christmas food and ended with Malvedos 1988 from Graham and before bed-time our Christmas wine which is a Ruländer Trockenbeerenauslese from Jakob Neumer in Rheinhessen which has received both Grosse Preis and Goldener Kammaer Preis.

On the 25^th we started with Champagne Brut Vintage 1989 Grand Année from Bollinger. Then we enjoyed a terrine of salmon with a sauce of gewürztraminer from Alsace together with Chablis 1^ercru Vaulignot from Louis Moreau and Alsace Riseling Grand Cru Wiebelsberg from Kreydenweiss, after that springbok and sauce from morels with Ch. Mouton Rorschild 1964 and Ch. Lafite Rotschild 1950 and ended with a Christmas pudding an stilton together with Vintage Port Taylor 1955 and Croft 1914.

We in the family had a wonderful Christmas!

Copenhagen Port Wine Festival

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Thank you Henrik Oldenburg for continuing the Port Wine Festival. We have only missed one of all these wonderful Festivals since the start in 1988. This year Cristiano van Zeller gave us a wonderful history of Port wine and red wines in Douro. The family has been in wine business since 1620 and his daughter is now the 15^th generation in the business. In the tasting room we could taste around 50 different vintage ports, the oldest a Martinez from 1987 but also four vintages from the 1990s. As usual Portal was most generous with 6 vintage ports but both Borges and Quinta de Roriz were also very generous and let us taste 4 different vintage ports of excellent quality.

Fourteen dealers presented the already famous 2011 vintage for tasting. The vintage is very exciting and sound. It seems to be a long runner even if some houses continue to do a more modern style of vintage port. Many compare this with the famous 1963 vintage. Read what point your favorite house got from us in the Last tasted section to the right.

Trip to Oporto and Douro

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View from Quinta do Noval (Photo: Jörgen Bergengrip)

The Port Wine Club est. 1981 from Copenhagen went for its 6^th trip to Douro and Oporto in September this year. It was a wonderful and interesting trip where we had a few unforgettable old white Ports. Maybe a Ports first duty no longer is to be red. We also had several tawny, colheita and some vintage during the trip. We visited the following houses: Conceito, Pocas, Quinta Santa Eufemia, Q. do Pego, Q. da Pacheca, Q. do Noval, Q. do Tedo, Bulas, Q. do Vesuvio, Q. do Crasto, Q. do Vallado, Gran Cruz, Dalva, Croft, Krohn, Kopke, Graham and Ferreira. You can see which vintages we tasted under each house.

Quinta do Noval Nacional
(Photo: Jörgen Bergengrip)

We also had a marvelous dinner at Rui Paula’s Restaurant DOC on the road between Régua and Pinhão. In addition we visited Vinologia Bar in Oporto where we enjoyed seven vintages we have never had before, such as Quinta das Lamelas, Quinta da Prelada and Quinta da Revolta and in Vila Nova de Gaia we also enjoyed Gilberts.

Copenhagen Port Wine Festival 2014

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Now it is time to buy tickets for this years Port Wine Festival at Børsen in Copenhagen. The event will take place on November 3.

As usual it is Forlaget Smag and Henrik Oldenburg that is arranging the event and we already know that Christiano van Zeller will be present at the festival. With a history in Quinta do Noval Christiano is now part of some very interesting projects that produces Vintage Ports under the names of Quinta Vale D Maria and also VZ (van Zeller). See more on our info site for Lemos & van Zeller.

There will as usual be more representatives for port producers around during the festival.

Tickets are available at http://forlaget-smag.dk/ and you will also find more info about participating importers.

Rui Maderia 2011 Vintage Ports

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We have just tasted the first two Vintage Ports from producer Rui Roboredo Madeira Vinhos (www.ruimadeira.pt). Wine maker Rui Madeira has been involved in several wine companies in Douro and Beira for the last two decades. His company Rui Roboredo Madeira Vinhos has not produced any Vintage Port before the generally impressive 2011 vintage. CastelloDAlba2011

The company is using two different brands, Fafide and Castello d’Alba. Through a very positive contact with Rui Madeira we got the opportunity to taste both Vintages some weeks ago. Both are very impressive and are nice structured. Please read our full tasting notes on our pages for Fafide and Castello d’Alba.

We hope to see more Vintage Ports from this new family owned company in the future and we also hope we get the chance to follow the 2011 Vintages for many years from now.

Great Tasting – Vintage 1980

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The Wine Society 18% has had a Great Tasting on 25 houses of the Vintage 1980. We think our Great Tasting is valuable to compare the different houses and also to get a good overview of the vintage as a whole. 1980 was, we think, overlooked by many port drinkers but not if you are a Port lover. The Symington group made the stars of the vintage – Dow, Graham, Warre and Smith Woodhouse, but also Taylor was excellent and maybe Noval Nacional. However a few major houses such as Croft, Martinez, Noval and Cockburn did not declared this vintage. You can read all the tasting notes and the ranking on the Great Tasting 1980 page.

Fonseca Guimaraens tasting

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The Port Wine Club est. 1981 in Copenhagen have during 2013 had some very interesting tastings, especially vintage tastings from 1963 and 1977. The new year started exciting with a tasting of 6 Vintages from Fonseca Guimaraens.

Even odd years from this house are wonderful. 1984 was peaking and lovely but the 1976 is still waiting to reach its peak. It is still very dark in colour and the question is if it will ever reach the mature and elegant state that the 1984 was displaying. We also tasted the 1988, 1991, 1995 and 1996 Vintages. See our tasting from March 5.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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We thank you for a wonderful and, for us, inspiring year with now more than 55.000 visitors from more than 130 countries. It has been very stimulating for us. Please read about our Great Tasting of the magnificent vintage year 1963. They are still wonderful to drink and enjoy. Some are maybe a little old but the best are marvelous. This is the second time we have a 1963 tasting and this time we had only 38 houses, but in 2005 we had 39 houses. Both tastings included a joker which was Quinta do Noval Nacional 1962 and both times it was Best in Show! Marvelous!

As usual we had an interesting Christmas Tasting in the Wine Society 18% and especially the comparison between 1976 Fonseca Guimaraens and Malvedos was worth-wile. Guimaraens is still very young, incredibly dark in colour, and we think this will be better with some more years in the cellar, but the Malvedos is wonderful today, much paler in colour and fully matured, maybe even a little old. Very interesting and a quite good vintage.

Grahams Malvedos 1976

Christmas the whole family spent in London and we did of course eat in some really marvelous restaurants and we also got the chance to taste a lot of Vintage Ports.

The Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen

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Thank you, Henrik Oldenburg, for continuing the Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen. We have only missed one of all these wonderful Festivals since the start in 1988.

This year Dalva presented their exciting Colheita of White Port. They are indeed very lovely and exciting.

Many dealers presented the already famous 2011 vintage for tasting and 30 out of 32 served this exciting vintage free of extra charge in our glass. The 2011 vintage is very exciting and sound. It seems to be a long runner even if some houses continue to do a more modern style of vintage port. If you have children or grandchildren you are to be congratulated indeed, since this is a vintage that we think they will be able to enjoy for a long time. Read what point your favorite house got from us in the tasting notes. You find them to the right, or here on the date 4th of November.