Category Archives: Wine tasting

Sherry festival in Copenhagen

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We visited the very first Copenhagen Sherry festival on April 25 at ‘Det Ny Teater’ (The New Theater) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival is arranged by Henrik Oldenburg, the man behind the annual Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen and also author of many wine books, not only his famous Port Wine book but also one about Sherry.

Bodegas Baron

There were about fifteen importers present at the festival, with Sherries from almost twenty different producers. A wide range of Sherries, from dry Fino to very sweet Pedro Ximenez could be tasted.

We appreciated the Amontillado, Oloroso and Palo Cortado types of Sherrie’s best, perhaps they are most like the port wine in balance. Some of the Pedro Ximenez were also very interesting but they are tough to taste due to their overwhelming sweetness and is in that sense a very different wine compared to port wine.

Bodegas Tradicion

Among the producers available there were many well-known large producers, but also smaller producers with more limited production. We especially enjoyed the wines from Almacenistas, some delicious 30 years old from Bodegas Tradición and finally the great wines from Bodegas Baron where the Soluqua Amontillado impressed us with its complexity.

The Roskilde Port Wine Fair 2019

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Started in 2015, the Roskilde Port Wine Fair has already established itself as a yearly highlight for all Danish (and Swedish) port lovers. The Fair offers a wide range of port wines in all categories, from both large, well known producers, as well as small family owned Quintas. There is always something new to discover.

As usual we focused on the Vintage Ports and there were plenty! We tried about 60 different Vintage Ports, all with tasting notes know available here on the web site.

The latest released Vintage, the magnificent 2016, was well represented. The Vintage is still too young to fully appreciate but the power and balance in these wines are very good and there is good reason for all the positive remarks the Vintage has received after the release. Vintage 2015 must not be forgotten, it is also a very good Vintage and some producers actually made better Vintage Port in 2015 than 2016. The interesting thing is that 2017 is already spoken of as a very good Vintage and we got to taste a promising cask sample from Quinta do Pego. We look forward to see the declarations of Vintage 2017 coming over the next couple of months.

We would like to thank all the importers, representatives from Portugal and the arrangers of the Fair for a wonderful afternoon.

Philipson Prestige tasting in Copenhagen

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At the prestige tasting on Sep 21 Philipson Wine had invited several of their suppliers to let us taste a selection of their wines. Some of the wines that we appreciated the most were: Sassicaia 2015, Bollinger Le Grand année 2007, Ch Cantemerle 2015, Ch Kirwan 2015, Ch Talbot 2015, Nyetimber Blanc de Blanc 2010 and Burmester Colheita 1955. Burmester was represented by Stefano Marello, who we also had the pleasure of meeting at our tour to Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia last June.

Theis Bordeaux Tasting

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This year Theis annual Bordeaux tasting was bigger and better than ever. With 27 Medoc Grand Cru Classe and a total of about 100 of classified Bordeaux vintages (including St Emilion and Graves/Sauternes) it was impossible to try all the good wines served. As we focused on Bordeaux we did miss out on some of the other wines served.

Most Chateaux had 2017 and an older vintage to sample. 2017 is a fairly good year, but not a classic. For most of the Chateaux their older bottle was the better.
We were particularly impressed by Ch Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande and Cos d’Estournel, both regarding their 2017 and their older vintage, 2010 and 2014 respectively. On the sweet side, there were some lovely Sauternes that really were superb, especially after sampling almost 80 young red tannic Bordeaux. Ch Suduiraut, Guiraud and Coutet were all fabulous. We are impressed by the outstanding collection of good wines that Theis had managed to set up at this wonderful tasting.

Philipson’s annual prestige wine tasting in Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark

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On September 20 in Aarhus and 21 in Copenhagen, Philipson Wine are having their annual prestige wine tastings. The tasting program includes different types of wine, e.g. Bollinger, Chablisienne, Sassicaia, Allegrini, Altesino, Catena, Phelps, Pesquera and Burmester Porto.  Tickets are available at www.philipsonwine.com

Bordeaux 2017 – Theis Vine Prestige tasting, Copenhagen, Denmark

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On September 4 Theis Vine arrange the annual tasting at the Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark. The main focus for the tasting is the great chateaux of Bordeaux, with both samples from the last vintage, 2017, as well as beads of older vintages directly from the producers’ own cellars. Furthermore, a selection of some other wines from the rest of the world are also available.

We will surely be visiting this tasting and you can expect our review of the event in September.

Tickets are available at www.theis-vine.dk

The 2018 Port Wine Fair in Roskilde, Denmark

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Once again this annual fair was a huge success with two sold out tasting rounds, a lot of representatives from the Producers and some really nice Port Wines to taste.

As usual the fair is focusing on quality port like Tawnies with age, Colheitas and of course Vintage Port. We are impressed by the many older Vintage Ports available on the Danish market and there was also a possibility to taste many fantastic examples of mature Vintage Ports. For example we very much enjoyed Sandeman 1967 and 1975, the later on Magnum! We also got to taste Dow’s Vintage Port 1975 on Magnum. Both 1975’s are of course mature, but you should remember that it ages a bit Sandeman 1967slower on Magnum, and often the best selection of the Vintage is bottled on the larger bottles. So both of these are really nice at the moment and will be so for some years to come.

It was also possible to taste mini-verticals of several producers.
Taylor: 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008 (Vargellas) and 2015 (Vargellas).
Warre’s: 1980, 1985, 2000, 2001 (Quinta da Cavadinha) and 2006 (Quinta da Cavadinha)
Sandeman: 1967, 1975, 1988 (Quinta do Vau) and 1999 (Sandeman Vau), 2013 (Quinta do Seixo)
Quinta da Romaneira: 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2015
Quinta das Lamelas: 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015
Portal: 2007, 2011, 2013 (Quinta dos Muros) and 2014 (Quinta dos Muros)

It was also the first time for us that we could taste Graham’s The Stone Terraces 2015 Vintage Port. A fantastic young Vintage Port that will be very interesting to follow during the coming decades.

Finally we also tasted some lovely old ports matured in wood, like Palmer 40 years Tawny, DR 50 years White and DR 70 years Tawny. Fantastic wines if you prefer port wines matured in wood.

Great Tasting of the Vintage 1955

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The Wine Society 18% was founded in 1993. We started to hold what we call Great Tastings in 2005. In the Society we are 15 members and have 5 meetings every year, and then some extra now and then.  As we are only 15 members, we can have quite rare bottles i.e. 1 bottle of each wine is enough. The meetings are held in Malmö, Sweden. We have had the following Great Tastings so far, 1947 (Semi-Great), 1958 (Semi-Great), 1960, 1963 (twice), 1966, 1970, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1984 (Semi-Great), and 1988 (Semi-Great) and three times House Tastings which were Cockburn, Ferreira and Fonseca- Guimaraens.

We call it a Great Tasting if we have more than 20 different bottles, otherwise a Semi-Great. As you can understand it is almost impossible to find 20 different from some of the Vintages we have tasted.

For the 1955 Vintage we unfortunately only had 17 bottles, so let’s call it a Semi-Great Tasting. The 1955 growing season was excellent in nearly every way, spring and late summer was a bit warmer than normal. During harvest the weather was also warm and dry. The vintage was wonderfully balanced with rich fruit flavors and mellow tannins initially. The wine market in UK was in a quite depressed state during this time and it was hard to sell the wines.Graham's 1955

We were 17 participants in this tasting held on November 16 in 2017. We often have some guests and if you are visiting Malmö, please let us know and you can maybe participate. The tasting was semi-blind i.e. we know which houses that participate but not what we had in each glass. The vintage 1955 is today 62 years old but the wines were very good and elegant on the whole with a lot of old sweetness and balancing old acidity. They were very attractive in the finish and very easy to enjoy and to drink! They will not be better so it is definitely time to enjoy this vintage.

This vintage is a classic Vintage, and we know of 26 houses who had declared this vintage and we know of 48 brands from this year. According to Broadbent 26 shippers declared this vintage which indicates the most widely declared vintage since 1927. Broadbent gave this vintage ***** out of 5*, Suckling 94 points out of 100. We rated it as Outstanding Vintage and gave it 9 out of 10 points and had before this tasting enjoyed 21 houses and the tasting included 4 new houses so from now 25 houses have been tasted.

Offley Boa Vista 1955Some of the best wines were very expected to be in the top, like Graham’s, Dow’s, Quinta do Noval and Ramos Pinto, but there were also some fantastic wines from less expected houses like Hooper and Quinta do Sibio (Real Vinicola). Some of the normally good houses didn’t make it to the top, this is of course very dependent on the actual bottle, and when 62 years old the handling of the bottle during all years will affect the outcome. In this tasting we had one bottle that was not ok, unfortunately this was Fonseca, which cracked in the glass.

Please read all tasting notes here.