Tag Archives: Kopke

Visit to Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto

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

 

Christmas greetings

As you may have read during the year, most port we enjoy are at home with the family. At Christmas the family is of course joining at home and enjoying food and wine together. This year we started early, on the 19th of December. We started the evening with a vintage 2000 champagne, Cuvee Nicholas from Billecart-Salmon and after that lobster together with Les Lys Prem. Cru  2013 from Chablis and to the elk entrecôte a Ch. Cheval Blanc 1976. On the 20th we started in the afternoon with a bottle of O-Port-Unidade Vintage Port 2013 that we very kindly got from Axel Probst. Krug88We started the evening with Krug’s vintage champagne from 1988 which was delicious and then we had scallop, duck liver and pâté from shell fish together with Montrachet, Marquis de Laguiche Grand Cru from Joeseph Drouhin and Ch. Haut Brion Blanc, Grave both from 1990 and wonderful with the course. As main course we had yak (yes a bit strange, but we always try to eat something special during one dinner the days before Christmas, and the yak was delicious) and this was accompanied by Ch. Latour 1945 and Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1955 both unbelievable and wonderful. As dessert we had saffron ice cream with figs and chest nuts from Baskien together with port wine; Silva & Cosens vintage 1915 and Starling vintage 1887, probably from Taylor, both were delicious.

The 21st of December our dinner was first pâté from roe-deer with Ch. Daise-Daene 2005 and after that Ch. La Lagune 1982 to filé of a deer?

On the 24th of December, to the stilton, we had Royal Oporto vintage from 1977 and Constantino’s vintage from 1950.SilvaCosens1915

On the 25th we started with Alfred Gratien Brut Champagne, an old bottle, and after that we ate spare-ribs with Ch. Montrose 1970, and to the cheese-cake we had a bottle of Feist vintage 1995

The next day we started with Belle Epoque 1990 Champagne and to the first course, a pâté of salmon, we had Beauregard Prem. Cru from Chablis 2014 from Fournier and Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Mambourg 2012 from Dom. Weinbach, Alsace. To the main course was filé of elk and we enjoyed Ch. Lafite Rotschild and Ch. Latour both from 1983. An intermission port i.e. a Bicentenary Crusted Port from Fonseca bottled 2008 was needed before the Christmas pudding and Kopke’s vintage from 1935 and Chaplin’s vintage from 1945.Constantino1950

On the 30th   we just had a glass of Calem’s Quinta da Foz 1996 on the afternoon and on the 31 st we started the day on the afternoon with a vintage champagne 2006, Grand Cru from Mailly and as always on the last day of the year an old “dead” German wine, this year it was a 1945 Mettenheim from Rheingau. In the evening as usual lobster together with A. Bergère’s Cuvee Prestige vintage champagne from 2000. To the rein-deer we had Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtessa from 1989 and ended with Quinta do Noval 1960 to the dessert which was soufflé of French plums.

The Christmas celebration for the family ended on the 5th of January. This day we started with Blanc de Blanc Grand Cru Champagne Cuvée St-Vincent 1996 from R.L. Legras mature and lovely. To the terrine from pheasant we had a Vendage Tardive Pinot Gris, Grand Cru Brand 1988, Alsace. The main course was entrecôte of deer accompanied with Reserva 904 1973 and 1970 from La Rioja Alta and to the dessert which was glace au four we enjoyed Borges & Irmao’s  vintage and their Quinta do Junco vintage both from 1960. As we are already longing for next Christmas we ended the day with Bual vintage 1878 from Christopher’s. No better way to end two lovely weeks.

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Kopke Vintage Port tasting

At the Wine Society 18% we arranged a tasting on the 21st of March of the oldest port house – Kopke. Kopke is perhaps more known for their Tawnies and cheaper ports but they have been producing Vintage Port since the 19th century.
We started the evening with the 300 years jubilee dry tawny (1638 – 1938). It was a very typical nice tawny with a very dry style. It was probably not meant to be kept for another 75 years but it was still a very decent and fresh wine.

KopkeTawny

For the tasting we had set up eleven, what we thought would be, mature and nice Vintages. The oldest from 1970 and the youngest from 1997.

The following Vintage Ports were in the tasting:

  • Vintage 1997
  • Vintage 1996
  • Vintage 1995
  • Vintage 1994
  • Vintage 1991
  • Vintage 1987 Quinta Sao Luiz
  • Vintage 1985
  • Vintage 1979 Quinta Sao Luiz
  • Vintage 1979
  • Vintage 1974
  • Vintage 1970

The first three were still very young. Both Vintages 1997 and 1996 still have some juicy fruit and the 1996 showed a very impressive concentration in the fruit.
Vintage 1994 was a disappointment, perhaps it was because it was served from half-bottles (they normally mature faster). If the 1994 was disappointing the 1991 was more as expected from a Vintage port just over twenty years. It was perfectly mature with nice soft tannins and a very good balance. The 1985 Vintage was very similar to the 1991 but with a larger body and in fact a bit more to go. The 1987 Quinta Sao Luiz was not quite ok, it had a strange and not so attractive bouquet, some kind of defect in this particular bottle.

KopkeTasting

All four Vintages from the 1970’s were very elegant and nice. It was interesting to taste both the ordinary Kopke and the Single Quinta from Sao Luiz from the same Vintage – 1979. We actually had the Kopke 1979 in a tasting of the 1979 Vintage last month and it showed the exact same elegancy and long soft style this time. The Quinta Sao Luiz was actually a bit better, with some more complexity, even if they were very similar. The 1974 was very mature and over its peak, but still ok.
Finally we had the Vintage 1970. This is a fantastic perfectly mature Vintage Port. It shows all the elegancy and complexity a mature Vintage Port can have and it was the outstanding top scorer of the evening.

For points and tasting notes see our Kopke page and Quinta Sao Luiz page.