Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Anything to do with Port.
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LGTrotter
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Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by LGTrotter »

On the LBV thread Tom has made a point which is one I have often thought about and commented on.
uncle tom wrote:
Why would exta time in the pipe compromise the wine's capacity to age?
My suspicion is that it doesn't, that a combination of wood age and bottle age tends to produce very enduring wines, such as the Niepoort Garrafeiras.

Why then are VPs often bottled early, with minimal wood exposure prior? I think the answer lies in the quest for good critical reviews.

Dirk once invited me into his blending room where he had some vintage stock samples. Two lotes had been partly kept in pipes and partly in tonels, and there was a significant difference between the two - more wood exposure at a young age clearly made for a more dour and sober wine.

Unfortunately, it follows that critics seeking out young fruit bombs to laud are likely to be less impressed by VPs that have had more wood exposure..
It is my sense that young vintage ports seem to be converging in terms of style. While this may in part be down to things such as the weather at vintage I have a suspicion that it may have as much to do with what Tom says with regard to the desire for positive critical reviews.

I suppose I notice in my own note taking that I will automatically mark up bigger wines and mark down those which tend to the lighter, despite being someone who actively prefers the medium weight style.

Have others noted this? And if this pendulum has swung towards bigger ports (as it certainly did in table wines) can we expect it to swing back any time soon?

The point about extending ageing in wood not impacting on the longevity of the wine is one that also interests me. I am in the camp that thinks that LBVs are good for about 20 to 30 years rather than 50 plus years which is regularly found in vintage ports. I would speculate that this is more to do with the underlying quality of LBVs rather than being to do with the time they have spent in wood.
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jdaw1
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by jdaw1 »

Oxygen kills fruit.

Madeira can have a century in the pipe, and still last another forever. But it has no fruit. The oxygen doesn’t prevent a wine being “enduring”, but it prevents it from being like Vintage Port.

And I like big.
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by Andy Velebil »

I don't think you can really compare LBV aging to VP in terms of how long they last. Simply, as what we are using for reference are two Ports that are quite often made from very different quality grapes and even the possibility of different Brandy used to fortify. So Id' caution not to generalize too much or draw hard conclusions.

I don't see producers making VP in a style to attract certain reviews, much like France and California did with Parker. Hence, the term often used "Parkerization." Simply, it is already a fruit bomb when young and no there is no reviewer wih the influence like Parker had who reviews VP's on a year in and year out basis. As has been said before here and elsewhere, the largest change we've seen in VP in recent years that have made them seem more approachable when young is fortifying spirit that has dramatically increased in quality. Brandy makes up roughly 20% of Port so the quality of it makes a huge impact. A great example is Croft Pink Port. TFP had to use the same brandy they use for their top VP's. As the lower qualities they use for their mid and lower level Ports was too harsh and the product was not very appealing.

I think Tom brings up a great point about marking up bigger wines. While I am a big fan of blind tasting at the same time I do think knowing the producer and understanding how their Ports develop is also very important to an overall review of a given VP. A style like Ferreira is quite different than the style of Graham's. Both can age equally well, but differently at the same time. So it's not always fair to solely rate them by a single blind taste testing.
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by DaveRL »

This thread, and the LBVs worth cellaring thread, brought to mind this YouTube video Wine and Spirits Magazine Presents João Nicolau de Almeida interviewing Dirk Niepoort, particularly from about 10:30 mins in.
LGTrotter
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by LGTrotter »

DaveRL wrote:This thread, and the LBVs worth cellaring thread, brought to mind this YouTube video Wine and Spirits Magazine Presents João Nicolau de Almeida interviewing Dirk Niepoort, particularly from about 10:30 mins in.
That is a fascinating interview. Thank you for the link. If I have understood the point that Dirk makes about the bottling time he is of the opinion that leaving it later than is customary may sacrifice some of the fruit but this is compensated by the overall quality. He also made a point about using smaller barrels, presumably to increase the air contact alters the quality of the tannins for the better. So on both counts Dirk seems to be against fruit bombs.

I have never come across this concept of 'metallic' tannins before. Most informative.
jdaw1 wrote:Madeira can have a century in the pipe, and still last another forever. But it has no fruit. The oxygen doesn’t prevent a wine being “enduring”, but it prevents it from being like Vintage Port.
This feels like an example of reductio ad absurdum. I would point to the fruit found in quite old colheita wines, and I am not referring to leaving vintage port in a barrel for between twenty to eighty years, but at most an extra year, maybe two.
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DRT
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by DRT »

LGTrotter wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Madeira can have a century in the pipe, and still last another forever. But it has no fruit. The oxygen doesn’t prevent a wine being “enduring”, but it prevents it from being like Vintage Port.
This feels like an example of reductio ad absurdum. I would point to the fruit found in quite old colheita wines, and I am not referring to leaving vintage port in a barrel for between twenty to eighty years, but at most an extra year, maybe two.
Surely JDAW is simply using an extreme example to demonstrate a point?

An example closer to the timescale you are looking at is the style now known as Reserve or Reserva, formerly Vintage Character. That style is aged in wood for around 7 years and is intentionally immediately approachable when bottled. It retains some fruit, but is not a "fruit bomb", has begun to develop some tawny-like characteristics and has gone beyond the point of retaining tannin. All of those attributes are a function of contact with air and wood - i.e. not being sealed in a glass bottle for five of its seven years. A VP at the same age will have hardly begun to develop and will more than likely be closed down.

If you want Port to be fruity and red when it is 30, 40, 50 or 80 years old you need to age it in a bottle from very early in its life. If you want it to be brown, sticky, acidic and tasting of nuts and dried fruit then you age it in wood for a longer period.

The two styles take different paths on a scale. It therefore seems logical to me that leaving vintage quality port in wood for 4 to 6 years and then bottling unfiltered it will send it down a different ageing path to the same or a similar wine that is bottled after less than two years.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
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Glenn E.
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by Glenn E. »

LGTrotter wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Madeira can have a century in the pipe, and still last another forever. But it has no fruit. The oxygen doesn’t prevent a wine being “enduring”, but it prevents it from being like Vintage Port.
This feels like an example of reductio ad absurdum. I would point to the fruit found in quite old colheita wines, and I am not referring to leaving vintage port in a barrel for between twenty to eighty years, but at most an extra year, maybe two.
I believe the point he's making is that the amount of time spent in wood isn't related to a wine's longevity. In fact, as demonstrated by Madeira, extremely long aging in wood can result in a product that is virtually indestructible.

He's reinforcing the point you made earlier:
LGTrotter wrote:The point about extending ageing in wood not impacting on the longevity of the wine is one that also interests me. I am in the camp that thinks that LBVs are good for about 20 to 30 years rather than 50 plus years which is regularly found in vintage ports. I would speculate that this is more to do with the underlying quality of LBVs rather than being to do with the time they have spent in wood.
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DRT
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by DRT »

Glenn E. wrote:He's reinforcing the point you made earlier:
LGTrotter wrote:The point about extending ageing in wood not impacting on the longevity of the wine is one that also interests me. I am in the camp that thinks that LBVs are good for about 20 to 30 years rather than 50 plus years which is regularly found in vintage ports. I would speculate that this is more to do with the underlying quality of LBVs rather than being to do with the time they have spent in wood.
I disagree with that. I think longer in wood compromises the aging potential of Port when it is bottled. There are very few examples of tawny/Colheita ports that go on developing significantly over a period of decades once consigned to glass. Yes, some age gracefully and perhaps mellow a little over time, but they do not "age" (as in significantly improve) over many decades like a VP would. LBV is a half way house between VP and a good quality tawny at the time it is bottled. Its ability to age in the same way and over the same duration as a VP is therefore compromised by the fact it has had an accelerated start to that process.

Perhaps opening a Warre 1985 and a Warre LBV 1986 side by side for the next 30 years is the only way to resolve this?

I'm in :wink:
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
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LGTrotter
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Re: Vintage Port and Fruit bombs

Post by LGTrotter »

DRT wrote: I think longer in wood compromises the aging potential of Port when it is bottled. There are very few examples of tawny/Colheita ports that go on developing significantly over a period of decades once consigned to glass. Yes, some age gracefully and perhaps mellow a little over time, but they do not "age" (as in significantly improve) over many decades like a VP would. LBV is a half way house between VP and a good quality tawny at the time it is bottled.
When I started this thread I was thinking mainly about vintage port and threw in the more general question about longer aging in wood as a sideline. Thanks to everyone for the responses. I think I sort of agree with Derek about tawny/colhieta port not improving in bottle. Although this is based more on the opinion of others I trust on this matter (Andy, Glenn) than on personal experience. My only caveat would be that madeira does not seem to come to much harm over long periods in bottle and is often stored in demijohns as a way of finishing the wine over long periods. (I almost joined 'For the love of port' to point out that large bottles of madeira are not made to be 'cool' but because it is the best way to store it over a long period, but I relented due to a previous stated belief that one port related forum was enough :wink: )

To think just about vintage port; I thought that the link to Dirk's interview was revealing in that he made the point which Tom talks about. He contends that while it may be that extending the time in cask for a few months more may produce less immediately gratifying wines in terms of fruit, he feels that the potential to age is improved. He also talks about the 'metallic' tannins being precipitated out but the tannins which remain in the port giving the muscle which allow the port to age. It is perfectly possible I have misunderstood Dirk but I thought his point that historically port was often kept in barrel for longer without any loss of ageing potential was telling. He cites the 27s and 1912 as examples of this. They kept rather well.

And while I take Andy's point that there is no critic in port who carries the weight of Parker in table wines and also with regard to the quality of the brandy used, I think that Tom may be onto something about producers trying to make something that is more immediately gratifying to present to critics. The trade does tend to pronounce on vintages with the support of critics and my sense is that it is next to impossible to tell how a port will develop over fifty years from tasting it in the first fifteen or even twenty years of its life. But they do.
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