You know Andy, both you and Roy are very bad at jumping to wild conclusions.
Yes Tom, we all bow to your read on 2007. At this stage, to compare 2007 to 1975, just shows ignorance of the facts, at best.
I plan to spend a week in Porto, tasting dozens of samples blind, each bottle tried 4-6+ x ... over 2-3 days each. This will be my 9th overall major vintage assessment going back to the 1991. In that time, I have tasted literally many hundreds of cask samples and recently finished bottles. That does not include the cask samples I have had at trade tastings, while visiting producers or "snapshot views" ... which number probably closer to a thousand cask samples since 1994 when I had my first one.
I do not prejudge a vintage, no matter what the hype (can there ever be more than there was in 2000?
) based on rhetoric, salesmanship or even my own personal views during the harvest and other visits. I was in Portugal 3x in 2007 and heard and saw a different level of excitement than even what I had viewed in other great vintages like 2000 and 2003, for example. Great.
None of that means a darn thing. It is nice to know and provides good background fodder for my articles, but means nothing without tasting the wines. Andy's quotes of yours are ... well, I will leave them to speak for themself. However, your contentious declaration from day 1 that 2007 was a failed vintage ... often quoting weather reports and making brash comments comparing it to 1975 (which you certainly did not have young) well ... I take very little stock in that rhetoric and that's certainly hypocritical as well, saying Andy and I jump to conclusions when you have done EXACTLY that with the 2007 vintage.
You can call me "a suck up to the Port industry" all you want. However,
I won't pre-judge anything I have seen, heard, believed about 2007 -- or even tasted! ALL I CARE ABOUT IS WHAT I TASTE BLIND. Please go back to any Vintage Port Forecast that I have ever written and tell me what you have found to be inaccurate. We can agree to disagree about scores, drinking windows etc. That is cool. Derek even went and prepared a statiscal analysis of my ratings from two vintages to see how they panned out. I am not one to put out scores or drinking windows that I don't believe will stand the test of time. Wouldn't that be the ruination of whatever credibility I do have? I write ... what I taste.
Observations and heresay of producers, do not alter that. Neither do friendships. The best example (for those that have not heard this before on
) is this:
In April 1997, one of my closest friends was launching his very first Port wine (a 1994 VP) and its debut was in Canada. I drove up to be there for that event. I was the only American journalist covering it there ... the first time it was being tasted by anyone. This is an individual that I know better than anyone on my website including Andy and Stewart, Derek or Alex, or even my good friend Nicos. I am speaking of Bartholomew Broadbent and I've known him for 15 years now. I was given a bottle that day by my good friend, to write about. I was quite critical of that bottling. It was simple and lacked the guts of almost any other Vintage Port in my forecast of that vintage. A lot of that had to do with the fact that there were only two grapes incorporated in that blend that Niepoort produced with Broadbent's involvement. Bartholomew was not amused and felt betrayed by his friend and I understood his anger at me. It took a couple of years to put that behind us. I stuck to my impressions of the wine and as those who know me best, I told it like I tasted it. If I'd risk losing one of my best friends to maintain my own integrity in critiquing Port, (even back then) well, res ipsa loquitur. Anyone who has ever been on one of my tours has seen me tell producers when I have not liked their wines or Ports ... early and often, politely but directly. There are nearly a dozen people on this site who have witnessed this on a number of occasions. Point being, chatter on a Forum is different than what may happen in the real world.
Suckling, Broadbent, Jancis, Mayson, Parker, Rovani ... every one of them has made mistakes in assessing cask samples. I am positive I have too. Having done this long enough to know the difference, there are very few things harder than making sense of a young cask sample or recently bottled Vintage Port. It takes tremendous concentration, no distractions, lots of time, the ability to revisit the wines over several days, always tasting blind and preparing a TN ever single time you approach each glass. That is the ONLY WAY to say whether a particular infant Port has the stuffing and balance to be worthy. I have been a professional judge in MANY wine competitions for a decade now and have assessed 150 wines in a day, for several days in a row. That is EASY compared to sitting down and tasting 15 infant VPs in a sitting and having to make sense of them, no less, risking one's own reputation with the written document which remains forever. I don't compare myself to any of the big names above, nor do I care.
To wrap up, say what you will. You may think I suck up to producers and of course I love to promote Port and will argue against what I believe are false claims, misguided attacks and folks who think nothing of besmirching a Shipper's reputation. I defend their reputations in their absence and some view that as Roy Hersh being a suck up or apologist for the trade. Honestly, I could care less. When it comes down to assessing a young Vintage Port, I take no prisoners and don't fall in love with everything I taste and I will put my ability to evaluate young Vintage Ports alongside ANY of the names above ... all of which I know and have consumed wine with on numerous occasions ... except for the folks from the WA. We may not agree on our impressions of the wines, but afterall, these are just impressions of one individual and I always include that disclaimer in my Vintage forecasts.
member and a debate amongst the Admins it was decided to move the following discussion from here to here.
Tom, you're right you didn't say terrible sorry for that, here are some things you've said about 2007's over the past 18 months or so...
Actually I think we will be needing our leader for awhile.
