1994 Revisited - Richard Mayson

[Alex Bridgeman]

In the January issue of Decanter magazine there was an article written by Richard Mayson in which he revisited several shippers wines from the 1994 vintage to reassess them once they reached their proper drinking age, comparing his impressions today with a Decanter tasting that took place in 1998. This was the first vintage in a modern style with Richard reporting Peter Cobb (of Cockburn) having said at the time "a generation ago, if we were tasting a wine with two years in bottle, we would be remarking on the enormous tannins and staying power..." There was concern that the fruit and apparent lack of tannins meant that this ports would fade quickly.

Richard's recent conclusion was that this fear was misplaced, saying that now the puppy fat fruit has dropped away but there is no shortage of depth or structure. The best of the ports have another two to three decades ahead of them. The best wines are described by Mayson as "fine and focused - not massive, but broad, dense and ripe" and "1994 is shaping up into an excellent vintage and will give drinking pleasure for many years to come."

Sixteen years ago the top three ports at the tasting were Fonseca, Quarles Harris and Martinez Eira Velha.

This time round the top 18 wines were:
96 - Fonseca - drink 2019-2050
95 - Calem - drink 2019-2050
95 - Gould Campbell - drink 2015-2045
95 - Vesuvio - drink 2015-2050
95 - Smith Woodhouse - drink 2015-2045
95 - Taylor - drink 2019-2050
93 - Dow - drink 2019-2045
93 - Graham - drink 2019-2050
91 - Sandeman - drink 2015-2045
91 - Warre - drink 2019-2050
90 - Borges - drink 2015-2040
90 - Ferreira - drink 2018-2050
90 - Quarles Harris - drink 2015-2050
88 - Delaforce - drink 2015-2040
88 - De la Rosa - drink 2015-2030
88 - Crasto - drink 2015-2040
88 - Ramos Pinto Ervamoira - drink 2015-2040
86 - Croft - drink 2015-2035

The main surprise to me was how poorly Croft scored, being described as "midweight" and "linear". I tried this twice last year and scored it in the low 90s both times.

[Andy Velebil]

When we did the 1994 retrospect there were some surprises, good and not so good. IMO and experience, some of these 1994's are either still in a closed phase or just coming out of it and now is probably not the best time to make hard predictions. A tasting in another 5 or so years should give a much better overall (reliable?) picture.

[Glenn E.]

I agree with Andy. The 1994s, despite their actual age, are still in or just starting to emerge from a teenage funk.

Try again at 25, or better yet wait until 30.

[djewesbury]

The findings in Mayson's article don't at first look seem to chime with our own findings at the Bordeaux Index 94 tasting held by Michael Schuster (at which RM was also present). However being restricted to Tapatalk at present means that not only can I not easily add a link to the Review of that event, nor can I very easily look it up right now. I will check and return to this.

[jdaw1]

can I not easily add a link to the Review of that event

Tue 04 March 2014, 1994 Horizontal, Michael Schuster.

[LGTrotter]

Richard Mayson is a person who's opinion I trust in port (even more so in madeira). Not having read the article it is difficult to tell, but he seems to be scoring most of the usual suspects in a bunch around 93 to 95, I think we can allow a couple of points variation for errors and omissions. So no clear standouts from this tasting. The Warre has scored lower than I might have expected, as has the Croft, De la Rosa and Quarles Harris. It is the Calem which surprises me most, not a shipper I have had much luck with.

But as has already been suggested I think that this may be a difficult time to judge the vintage, I would think that 30 years might give clearer results. But I think that the 94 is a very good, rather than great vintage, the scores here and at the tasting Daniel mentions appear to reflect this. Perhaps it is just the style of the vintage that I find unedifying.

[Andy Velebil]

Here's a few of my scores from our single blind tasting last year where my scores and RM's are pretty widely apart (we knew the wines, didn't know the order served).

1994 Ramos Pinto Erva I was 94-95 points, this rocked.
Croft was 96-97 points and blew everyone away
Crasto was 93+ (and I'm not a big fan of most of their VP's)

The rest were generally within 1-3 points so not that big of a difference.

Oh, and Duff Gordan, just say no, just walk away from it, don't pass go, and if you own them, sell.

[LGTrotter]

I was reading a quote in Ernest Cockburn's 'Port wine and Oporto' today (which I can't find now), complaining that in olden times port aged steadily but now it did not. I first wondered when we should consider olden times to have finished, but more importantly that I seem to notice this in modern vintages, 1994 in particular. They seem to go in and out of focus more often and more quickly than old 'uns. Possibly this is another case of nostalgia not being what it used to be.

[Andy Velebil]

I was reading a quote in Ernest Cockburn's 'Port wine and Oporto' today (which I can't find now), complaining that in olden times port aged steadily but now it did not. I first wondered when we should consider olden times to have finished, but more importantly that I seem to notice this in modern vintages, 1994 in particular. They seem to go in and out of focus more often and more quickly than old 'uns. Possibly this is another case of nostalgia not being what it used to be.

Not sure. I'd hazard a guess that we could probably use the early to mid 1980's as a starting point. As that was when the largest replanting started to take place, post Phyloxeria anyways, with block planting and better overall viticulture awareness. There were also changes in the Arguadente procurement that started happening.

Edit: Though maybe we could also think the early 1960's with autovinification? Or would that not be that big of an innovation for VP as not that many used it for VP (that I know of anyways).

[Glenn E.]

This time round the top 18 wines were:
96 (93) - Fonseca - drink 2019-2050
95 (NA) - Calem - drink 2019-2050
95 (NA) - Gould Campbell - drink 2015-2045
95 (98) - Vesuvio - drink 2015-2050
95 (92) - Smith Woodhouse - drink 2015-2045
95 (89) - Taylor - drink 2019-2050
93 (94) - Dow - drink 2019-2045
93 (95) - Graham - drink 2019-2050
91 (NA) - Sandeman - drink 2015-2045
91 (92) - Warre - drink 2019-2050
90 (NA) - Borges - drink 2015-2040
90 (94) - Ferreira - drink 2018-2050
90 (92*) - Quarles Harris - drink 2015-2050
88 (NA) - Delaforce - drink 2015-2040
88 (NA) - De la Rosa - drink 2015-2030
88 (94) - Crasto - drink 2015-2040
88 (87) - Ramos Pinto Ervamoira - drink 2015-2040
86 (97) - Croft - drink 2015-2035

My scores added (in parenthesis) from the FTLOP 9th Anniversary celebration, 1994 Horizontal. We tasted everything blind, though as I recall we at least in theory knew what all of the Ports were that would be in the tasting. Provided you paid attention and cared enough to make note of the information, which I did not. In addition to the above, we also tasted:

(95) - Martinez Quinta da Eira Velha
(93) - Quinta do Noval
(92) - Offley Boa Vista
(91) - Martinez
(89) - Burmester
(88) - Cockburn
(87) - Duff Gordon
(85*) - Quinta do Noval Nacional
(84) - Broadbent
(83) - Niepoort Quinta do Passadouro
(83) - Niepoort

* both of these wines were reportedly corked. But since I'm immune to TCA, I scored them anyway and found the Quarles Harris to be excellent. Note that my score for the Quarles Harris is in line with other bottles of it that I have tasted, so I do not believe that the TCA affected my scores. My score for the Nacional is, unfortunately for me, in line with scores for other Nacionals that I have had as well.

All three of the Niepoort-bottled wines were pretty heavily riddled with VA. The Passadouro was the worst, followed by the Broadbent and then the Niepoort. I don't normally find VA offensive, but all three of these bottles were pushing my limits. Arguably I should not have scored them, but I did since I don't normally care that much about VA in a Port.

The overall top 3 were the same as mine - Vesuvio, Croft, Graham - at least according to the points. Oddly, though, I have written down in my notes that the group ranked them Croft (28 pts), Vesuvio (29 pts), Graham (24 pts). We vote at the end of the session, which probably explains the error. Unfortunately I'm not sure which is in error - the point totals or the listed order of finish.

[djewesbury]

The very high scores given to GC and Ca in this tasting surprised me, even though I've not had the Ca. And in the Schuster line-up, we had no Sandeman, oddly. Agree that I would have expected Warre to score higher. The rest is explicable. But the 'puppy fat' sweetness calls to mind some of the 2011s, especially the Stone Terraces. When tasted at release this seemed too open and sweet to last, but then again almost everything else was a tannic fruit explosion so it was hard to tell.

[mosesbotbol]

I agree with Andy. The 1994s, despite their actual age, are still in or just starting to emerge from a teenage funk.

Try again at 25, or better yet wait until 30.

Agreed.

[LGTrotter]

The very high scores given to GC and Ca in this tasting surprised me,

The Gould Campbell always seems to punch above it's weight so not such a surprise.