Tag Archives: Port Wine Festival

Port Wine Festival, Copenhagen

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).

Christian Seely

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.

Annual Port Wine Festival at Børsen, Copenhagen

This years Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen will as usual be held the first Monday in November, so this year November 6, at Børsen Copenhagen. The event is held by well known port wine expert Mr. Henrik Oldenburg and Forlaget Smag.

This is a perfect opportunity to taste a lot of high-quality port wines from a large number of importers/producers. Both from the larger port wine houses, but also from smaller and less well-known producers often with representatives at the location willing to answer any question.

Tickets can be bought from Forlaget Smag here: https://www.forlaget-smag.dk/kob-billet-portvin

Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen

At the Port wine festival in Copenhagen last November we visited both the port wine fair and a separate master class. The master class was focused on tawny port and led by Miguel Braga from Quinta do Mourao.

Miguel Braga

He led us through the 10-20-30-40- and 50 years old white, as well as “60” and “90” that is not official categories. The two last ones are not official categories but nevertheless both old and excellent! The “90” is actually 1927 white Colheita and was 95 years rather than 90. In addition we also had a chance to sample their new 50 year old tawny. All wines were very well made and we must say that Miguel Braga and Quinta do Mourao makes very good mature colheita and tawny and is one of the best producers for white port. They produce wine under the brands S. Leonardo and Rio Bom.

In the open tasting we focused on Vintage Ports and got the chance to taste some Ports we had never tasted before.

Quinta da Trovisca 2017

Copenhagen Port Wine Festival at Børsen

We are very pleased that Henrik Oldenburg could again arrange the Port Wine festival in 2021, at the period between two waves of Covid-19. Especially as 2020 was cancelled due to the same pandemic virus.

Before the start of the festival there was a press tasting featuring Dominic Symington. As Dominic became 65 years old in May 2020, he retired from the company management and the tasting held at the port wine festival in Copenhagen was his last official act. The theme of the tasting was “Vintages from my time” and he had selected a rare and exclusive selection, taken directly from Symington’s own stock. We had a wonderful selection of vintage ports, including the following: 1963 Dow and 1970 Graham, both selected because they were the first after Symington’s purchased Dow respectively Graham, 1977 Dow, 1980 Warre, 1985 Graham, 1994 Quinta do Vesuvio, 1995 Quinta da Cavadinha, 2000 Warre, 2007 Dow, 2011 Cockburn, 2011 Dow, and 2017 Graham. All bottles were in mint condition and performed very well. We are very grateful to Dominic for his fantastic guidance trough six decades of port and the “vintages from my time”.

Dominic Symington
Dominic Symington at the Port Wine festival in Copenhagen

The vintage ports featured at the port wine festival were mainly from 2017, 2018 and 2019, but also some older. Among the better newly released vintages were Quinta do Vesuvio 2018, Quinta do Seixo 2019 and Sandeman 2018. In addition to Dominic’s special tasting, we must mention that we very much appreciated that it was possible to sample a few older vintages, such as Churchill 1997, Quinta do Cachao 1983, Sandemans Vau 1999 and Sandeman 1980. On the tawny side there were several very good old tawny’s and colheitas, such as 1969 Quinta da Devesa Colheita Branco and Palmers 1962 white and 1970 Colheita.

As a general conclusion regarding the last vintages 2018 and 2019, none of these are up to the standard of the spectacular triplet vintages 2015-2017.

Port Wine Festival in Copenhagen

Henrik Oldenburg and Forlaget Smag is arranging the annual Port Wine Festival at Børsen, Copenhagen on Monday November 4, 2019.

There will as usual be many representatives from port producers during the festival and the importers display a wide range of different port types.

Tickets are sold from Monday, August 12. Find all information about participating importers and producers and buy tickets on http://forlaget-smag.dk/

Port Wine Festival at Børsen in Copenhagen

It was with great expectations we went to this year’s Festival in Copenhagen. Not only because we were looking forward to taste some 2016 Vintage Ports, the latest generally declared Vintage, but also to learn more about the Colheitas from Andresen in a special tasting with the owner of Andresen, Carlos Flores dos Santos and their wine maker Alvaro van Zeller.

Andresen are producing both Colheita and Vintage Ports, but according to Carlos they have always considered themselves of being a Tawny and Colheita house. After participating in this tasting we can understand why. Vintage Port lovers as we are, we have of course tasted many of their Vintage Ports, and even if they are good they are not competing with the best in that category. Their Colheitas on the other hand are indeed very good and in this tasting we got the chance to taste two Colheitas from each decade all the way back to the 1960’s, and on top of that two older fantastic Colheitas. 1937 Colheita bottled already in 1980, meaning it had about the same time in wood as on bottle. This was a great wine, showing elegancy, complexity and a quite light body, but with a long lovely finish. The last wine was more recently bottled Colheita 1910; actually it was bottled when 100 years old in 2010. This wine has an enormous concentration and a fat lovely aftertaste which never seems to end. Indeed a top quality Colheita!

Carlos Flores dos Santos and Alvaro van Zeller

In the open tasting we focused on the Vintage Ports and we found some interesting new producers we never got the chance to taste before. Dona Otilia, Martha’s, Boeira and Lacrau were new to us and we also tasted Quinta da Oliveirinha from Alves de Sousa for the first time. The latest Vintage 2016 was quite well represented and some of them are very impressive, we especially liked Sandeman and Dow’s but there were others that also impressed on us like Churchill, Kopke, Barros and Quinta da Romaneira. Even if 2016 is generally declared and 2015 is not there are for sure some really good wines made from 2015 as well. One that we have been very impressed by since we tasted it the first time last year is Niepoort Vintage Port 2015, and once again it shows that the best from 2015 can match many of the 2016 Vintage Ports.

Overall this year’s Festival shows that port wine is more popular than ever in Denmark. There is a huge assortment of all kinds of port available from many devoted and passionate importers, many of them with great knowledge of Port in general and there is always something new to learn when talking to them over a glass of port. So a big thanks to all of you for all the generosity, both with wine and knowledge. We are also of course sending our compliments to Mr. Henrik Oldenburg for the great arrangements. This is indeed one of the highlights on the year for port lovers like us.

New port wine book by Henrik Oldenburg

Henrik Oldenburg has written a new book after his outstanding ‘Port wine’. The new one is called ‘Portvin i glasset’ (‘Port wine in the glass’). Both are available only in Danish but easy to read for both Swedes and Norwegians. In the new book he promotes port wine by saying that Port wine can be enjoyed nearly every day and not just at Christmas. The book is a good introduction to Port wine and he tells you almost everything about this wonderful wine; description of the various types of port, best vintages, what kind of glass to use, how to decant and in which decanters and of course his own favorite port wines. It is indeed a wonderful wine, and sitting in an arm chair reading the book while sipping on a glass of port, just enjoying life, is also wonderful.

The new book will only cost 70 Danish Krone, and it will be available when the Port Wine Festival is taking place on November 6 in Copenhagen. See you all there!

Port Wine Festival, Copenhagen

Forlaget Smag is arranging the annual Port Wine Festival at Børsen, Copenhagen on Monday November 6. Henrik Oldenburg is as usual the man behind the Festival and we have been informed that Dirk Niepoort will be this years special guest.

There will as usual also be many more representatives from port producers during the festival.

If you have not already bought your ticket, now is the time to do so, as they are selling out fast! Find all information about participating importers and producers and buy tickets on http://forlaget-smag.dk/