The product of a climactically challenging year, the 2016 Vintage shows all the characteristics of a wine that could reach great age, whilst also providing drinking pleasure at any time in its maturation cycle.

The wine is a deep dark ruby with violet undertones, and the nose offers lush plum, grape and blueberry aromas supported by rich spice notes, a lovely combination of freshness and intensity. On the palate dense, powerful fruit and rich tannins are well balanced, robust and compact, just what you want for a classic Vintage Port.

At this point it seems every year is an “atypical” year for weather in the Douro, and 2016 gave us challenges different from 2015’s atypical pattern. The winter months were warmer than usual and January and February wetter by far than the historical averages. The spring months (March – May) were cooler than normal but also extremely rainy. Then came a hot dry summer, and a perfect warm and dry harvest period which began mid-late September, after a welcome light rainfall that gave the grapes that last bit of freshness before harvest.

The 2016 Vintage Port blend rather unusually includes grapes from Quinta das Mós. With over a kilometer of river frontage, this low, north-facing quinta is usually our driest and first to harvest, but it seems 2016’s unusual weather patterns suited it well and the grapes matured to Vintage greatness.

In Portugal it is traditional to have fish the evening of the 24^th – bacalhau, octopus or skate. We would recommend a white for these dishes, particularly Claudia’s White 2015. In fact, this wine would also be superb with the turkey which is typical of English and North American Christmas dinners. A finely balanced blend of five different Portuguese grapes, Claudia’s White 2015 has an elegant and complex aroma that will delight your senses with an intriguing blend of slightly smoky and bright citrus notes. On the palate it delivers a well-structured and complex flavour with great freshness and minerality.

If your holiday meals will feature richer meats, such as a roast goose, game, or a crown roast of beef, or the Portuguese cabrito (roasted goat) or a rich lombo assado (roasted loin of pork), then you will want a superb red, and we recommend Q Grand Reserve 2014. Made from a trio of classic Port grapes this wine is maturing beautifully in bottle. Rich dark fruit flavours dominate both nose and palate, with a whiff of spices and a chocolatey richness, and power that extends into a wonderful long finish.

Finally… what to drink with the dried fruit flavours of fruitcakes and mince pies, or the wonderful eggy sugary richness of Portuguese fried Christmas sweets such as rabanadas, filhoses or sonhos? Port, of course. But here, we would recommend the 30 Year Old White Port. The flavour is too complex to put into mere words, but Claudia, who blended this, noted “at a certain point, it smells like honeycomb.” The finish never seems to end. That said, the refreshing acidity is just what you want to cut through the richness of your desserts. Also, honestly, this Port can be enjoyed as a well-earned dessert in and of itself – you may not want any pudding.

Enjoy your holidays!

2013 was a great year for us, so we just hope that 2014 is as good.

Happy New 2014!

Oscar

Wine geeks like rituals. We care about which glasses to use, which way to pass the bottle, decanting time or serving temperatures. We take these “necessary” steps to fully enjoy a bottle of wine on any occasion. Another ritual that you may also care about is how to open the bottle and which cork screw to use. For very old bottles which might have a wet cork that may not come out in a single piece, port tongs can make the whole difference.

How to use Port tongs? Instead of pulling out the cork, we directly remove the top of the neck. The video above will show you how to do it but basically, the tongs are heated (I prefer to use ember rather than the stove), then clamp the tongs around the neck of the bottle right above the line of the bottom of cork for 30 seconds and then put a cold wet towel (I sunk the towel in an ice bucket) around the neck in the same place. If the tongs were really hot this temperature change will cause the glass to break. Voilà, you made it. Time to decant the wine and enjoy it with your company. If you didn’t make it, try again and make sure the port tongs are red-hot before clamping them to the bottle!

Cheers,

Oscar

Practical information that you may want to know: we have just finished to bottle what is the last batch of this first edition of 1996 Colheita (we made three bottlings between 2010 and 2013). The remaining volume we have, a bit more than 10.000 liters, will remain aging in oak pipes and in tonel for the next decades, before we touch it again and put it in bottle.

Cheers,

Oscar

And then you realize this is not a dream and you are quite awake. And you smile again.

Oscar

As you may know, the IVDP controls and approves all the Port Wine on the market. Every time we want to bottle a new batch of Port, being Rose, Tawny or anything else, we have to submit samples and wait for the IVDP to blind taste these samples and perform laboratory analysis. If all is okay, then we are allowed to bottle the blend we have submitted.

Well, for Vintage Port, the IVDP applies additional controls, as this is not less than the most important Port category. Between January and June of the second year after the harvest, producers can submit samples of their Vintage Ports blends. The IVDP will then blind taste and do chemical analysis. If the tasting profile matches the high standards for Vintage Port and if all is okay on the laboratory, IVDP will approve the batch for bottling. But it does not end here. Before the bottling, the producer has to inform the IVDP about the day(s) of bottling. Knowing that, the IVDP controllers will come to the winery and will count the number of bottles, in all formats, that were bottled and will collect 5 samples of the batch the producer is bottling. With these samples, IVDP will check if the Port the producer submitted for approval is the same as the Port the producer bottled. Also, knowing the exact number of bottles, will only allow sales of this stock, meaning, no miracles of multiplication! Then, a last simpler step need to be taken, which is to approve the label and back label with all the mandatory information. But, in this case, there is no difference for other styles of Port.

From the first moment we submit the samples, in February 26th, until the moment we have Vintage Port ready for shipping it can easily pass 3 or 4 months. The image you see on the screen is a copy of the first page of the laboratory analysis of our 2011 Vintage Port, approved in March 11th, 2013. Full version here of the document here. This is As curiosity, all the inventory we bottled of 2011 Vintage Port is:

• 529 of 375ml bottles
• 3,016 of 750ml bottles
• 48 of 1.5L bottles
• 60 of 6L bottles

Let us know your comments, if you have some.

Oscar

Related articles

• It’s a great year to sail into a vintage port
• Bung, Bung, Bung, Bung: Mr. Sandeman, Send Me A Port
• Vintage Port deserves more marketing

View over Pinhão village

During these last months we have seen many Port producers declaring the production of Vintage Port from the 2011 harvest. This means that there will be a big percentage of Port producers releasing 2011 Vintage Port. That being said, we can say that the harvest of 2011 was very generous for Port producers, making it possible to produce outstanding Port, across different villages and terroirs, almost all over the Douro, or at least, in the Cima-Corgo and Douro Superior areas.

However, there is no official organism with the duty or power to announce a certain year as a Declared Vintage. This absence of official declaration includes the Port and Douro Wines Institute – IVDP. I would say that a General Declaration is a kind of common sense term among Port Wine enthusiasts that agree that a certain year is of an outstanding quality considering the also the number of producers that released Vintage. Or, in the words of Glenn Elliott who posted on For the Love of Port forum in 2008, “My guess (and it is 100% just a guess) is that no such “rules” exist. I suspect that the concept of a “generally declared” vintage is a rule of thumb, not an actual defined term, so it means whatever the most people think it means.

Maybe you are now wondering which Port producers declared 2011 Vintage Port. Here are the names below, which I got from the The Port Forum – check the link for updates and comments from Port enthusiasts on this forum. This is not a final list as IVDP approves Vintage between February and July.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t your average Port Wine. This wine is something that will make you weep, it’s so good. We’re talking so insanely good that it will be the elixir to woo your girlfriend into marriage, get that new job, convince your husband that a trip to Hawaii is a fabulous idea this year. It’ll turn a bad day good, or a good day into a freaking amazing day! Did we mention we love this wine?!

Why did we declare the 2011 a vintage harvest? Simple! The grapes presented such color and concentration that many things needed to go wrong for this not to result in a Vintage year. The weather and growing conditions were fantastic, allowing the vines – when properly cared for – to create rich, intense and fresh berries, that once crushed would release loads of color, tannins and flavors that are the key to structure of an age worth Port.

But what we think makes 2011 different from other years  – and why you should put 2011 Vintage Port on the list – is the way it looked after the second winter. Cold temperatures like those we face in the Douro, with the thermometer going as low as -5º C, help in the clarification of Port. During this time, tannins change and colors tend to get less dark and intense. What surprised us regarding this particular vintage was the youth and stamina that the 2011 Vintage Port presented at the time of bottling. These 18 months are critical to see how Port is going to age, and the 2011 looks amazing. We have plenty of hope that this is going to be a Port to age for many years.

More valuable information about the winter and weather conditions can be found at the 2011 Harvest Report of Symington’s The Vintage Port site.

Don’t leave all your comments on Facebook, please drop some here. They will remain for longer.

Oscar

The most interesting thing about the Wine Bloggers Conference is meeting people. That is why I made it all the way to Porland, Oregon, on the Pacific cost of the US. Very long trip from Portugal and less 8 hours time zone difference, which mean, in my personal case, many days to adjust to jet lag.

This year there were over 370 people participating, mostly from the US. Plenty of new faces but also some old buddies that are veterans at this event. Although what really makes me to go to the American Wine Bloggers Conference are the people, it is not about them that I want to talk about today. I would rather focus on a session that pointed me to something I have never thought about: neuroscience of wine tasting. What is that? Neuroscience, says wikipedia, “is the scientific study of the nervous system”. So I think we can conclude that neuroscience of wine tasting is about how your nervous system behaves when your are tasting wine. Tim Gaiser presented a compelling research about the neuroscience of wine tasting, which I’ve posted above. Going through this slideshow, specially after the slide 40, which is when conclusions start to come out, we can better understand how your brain reacts to different impulses on a wine tasting. It is a long presentation, but worth to check. For instance, grab a glass of wine; bring it to the nose and think about which flavors you find in the wine; write it down; ok, so while you are thinking about these flavors, does not matter if they are fruits, spices or any other thing, your brain is building images for each one of it. Now, think about the one that you feel more (lets call it strawberry); roll your eyes to the top and make the image of the strawberry much bigger in your head, as big as possible. Keep the glass close to the nose; is not more intense the strawberry flavor?

You may have found an easier way to convince your friends to find the flavors you smell when drinking wine together. But, as Doug Frost points out, “Changing any structural aspect of the images of either fruit or words makes the experience artificial and unreal”. And, this is my humble comment, the bigger you see the strawberry, the smaller the rest will look like, and less complexity will be found in the wine.

Please bring your comments to the discussion when you try this experience. This one is safe to try at home!

Oscar