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.

Port Wine Day – September 10th

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Sten, one of the authors on vintageport.se have been celebrating September 10th with port wine every year since 1976, the year he fell in love with the wonderful enjoyment port wine brings.
His celebration on this day is due to his birthday, this year celebrated for 75 years. We all hope you will have a nice glass of Vintage Port that day.

Celebration of the Port Wine Day is also celebrated on September 10th on the day when its designation of origin was created, in 1756.

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

Visit to Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto

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In June this year we visited Porto and Douro, starting with a few days in Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto and concluding with visits to some of the quintas in Douro. In Vila Nova de Gaia we had several fantastic and very well organized tours and tastings, but also a few drop by tastings at some lodges we had not booked in advance.

Symington is one of the leading Port companies and has several lodges in Gaia. We visited Graham’s and Cockburn’s. At Graham’s, that is one of the bigger lodges in Gaia, the tours are very professional and interesting and the tasting was very good.

Tasting at Cockburn’s

Coopers at work in Cockburn’s lodge

Cockburn’s new lodge offers also a very good tour and tasting and includes a very interesting view into how the coopers make or renovate the pipes, barrels and vats.

Alvaro van Zeller in the Barao de Vilar lodge

Barao de Vilar Colheitas

 

 

 

At Barao de Vilar wine maker Alvaro van Zeller showed us their stock and bottling operation in Gaia. Barao de Vilar is much smaller as a company than the major port groups, but they are also one of the most creative. In order to make an impact they are making very clever packages and bottles, such as their 100 years tawny, consisting of four small bottles of 10+20+30+40 = 100 year tawny. Alvaro and his team also have a number of very old colheitas, of which we had the great honor to taste 1990, 1977, 1963 (Barao de Vilar vs Palmer), 1962, 1950, 1934 in addition to their vintage and white colheita. It was an absolutely amazing tasting which we will remember for a long time.

2016 Vintage Ports tasted at the Calem lodge

Sogevinus owns Cálem, Kopke, Burmester, Barros and some other brands. We visited the newly renovated and upgraded Cálem lodge that combines hi-tech presentation in combination with a traditional tour to provide a good experience. For example, they have a 5D-cinema experience. We had a very interesting tasting of their latest 2016 vintages as well as some fabulous older colheitas. We really appreciated to be able to taste their fine ports in the company of Sogevinus PR & communication manager Jose João Santos, Business manager Stefano Marello and winemaker Carlos Alves.

Beautiful colours of Dalva and Cruz port wines.

Cruz and Dalva are situated in the main square in Gaia, at Espaço Porto Cruz. Gran Cruz bought the company C. da Silva and their brand Dalva in 2007 and they are now both presented at Espaço Porto Cruz. At Grand Cruz you can have a meal in their restaurant or try a selection of their ports. We got a very good expose of Cruz and Dalva port including their fantastic white ports, Dalva Golden White, and Presidential Vintage 2011. Presidential is an alternative brand for Dalva used in some markets.

In addition, we stopped at some other lodges and had some ports in the bar at:

  • Ramos Pintos,
  • Quinta dos Corvos
  • Augusto´s
  • Portologia, port wine bar in Porto

 

Trip to London and the B.F.T.

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Beginning of May we went to London to shop port wine and participate in some tastings. The shopping was somewhat disappointing; we can find far more Vintage Ports for sale in Copenhagen than we could in London! If the shopping wasn’t very successful the tastings were definitely so!

We have already written about the tasting arranged by The Port Forum held on May 8.

The B.F.T.On May 9 we participated in the Big Fortified Tasting, the B.F.T. in Church House, central London.  The B.F.T. is the single largest wine fair in the world which is solely dedicated to fortified wines. All kinds of fortified wines were served but we focused on Vintage Port and mature Madeira. Some producers offed the first tasting of Vintage 2016, and from the samples we had, we believe that 2016 is an even better vintage than the superb 2015. In addition to the last vintages, there were also some older vintages served, such as Dow’s 1985, Warre’s 1980, Fonseca’s 1985 and Taylor’s 1985. Some very well arranged master classes were also arranged as part of the B.F.T. We participated in the Master classes ‘The Golden Age of Taylor’s Tawny’, ‘Barbeito Madeira – New Challenges and Projects’ and  ‘Sandeman Port presented by George Sandeman and Luís Sottomayor’, more about these will soon come on our site.Symington

Finally we think it is worth mentioning the new era of White Port. The old saying ‘The first duty of Port is to be red’ (Ernest Cockburn), does not necessarily hold anymore. While most White Port is sold and consumed young, there are some excellent examples on the market showing the aging potential of White Port. Miguel Braga from Quinta do Murão severed a very good S. Leonardos 50 years old white port and a 90 years old white port. These are not only impressive in age, but also very impressive in taste. Both well worth to try for all of you who haven’t discovered the world of White Ports.Fladgates

 

Overall, we think the fair was well organized and we hope to be able to come next year too.

Something nice from the 60s with The Port Forum

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The Port Forum is an internet forum as well as a devoted group of port wine lovers. We attended a “high-flying” tasting organized at the Royal Air Force Club in central London. The premises were very elegant and we were awed and could hear the sound of the Spitfire planes in our mind when we admired the hundreds of paintings of air crafts hanging on the walls.
With participants from Sweden, Germany, Portugal and Italy in addition to the U.K., we were a fairly international group. The theme was set to “Something nice from the 60s” and everybody brought a bottle of their own choosing to fit the theme.
The final selection became quite interesting. Two bottles were vintage port mixed by the importer- Harvey’s 1962 (Cockburn+Martinez) and Averys 1963 (Sandeman+Fonseca+Taylor). Three bottles pre 1963, 8 bottles of 1963 and three bottles of 1966.

  • Croft 1960 – Fonseca 1960 – Harvey’s 1962
  • Averys 1963 and it’s components – Sandeman 1963 – Fonseca’s 1963 – and Taylor 1963
  • Warre 1963 – Dow 1963 – Feist 1963 – and Dalva Golden White Tawny 1963
  • Fonseca 1966 – Taylor 1966 – Noval 1966

1960sThe tasting was a lovely experience. Most bottles were very good but a few were not at peak performance. This is the risk you have to take when you drink wine that is more than 50 years old. As a vintage, the legendary 1963 has peaked and some of the wines are beginning to deteriorate, but most are still very good and will stay on high level for many years to come. It is also noteworthy that 1966 is keeping very well in general, and some were perceived as quite  young – at an age of 52 years. This was a great and quite wonderful tasting for us from Sweden and we hope we can go to London again at these occasions.

Portal Vertical tasting 1995 – 2014

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The Wine Society 18%, celebrating 25 year anniversary this year, had a tasting of the house Portal on March 15, 2018. Out of the 15 Vintage Ports released from Portal, we had 14 in this tasting. This includes some Single Quinta Vintages from Quinta do Portal and Quinta dos Muros.

Portal

Please read more about the tasting here. You will also find tasting notes and scores for all tasted wines.

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.