Post
by AHB » 10:11 Sat 07 Jan 2017
Some more pointless statistics from me, as much for my benefit as for anyone else's so I can see how things have changed over the last 12 months.
This year I took 111 bottles out of my "cellar". Combined with the purchases during the year, this left a cellar which was composed of:
91% Port
3.5% Bordeaux
1.5% Champagne
1.0% Australian
0.5% Spanish
0.5% South African
2.0% Other things, each less than 0.5% individually (including English, Hungarian, US, NZ, Lebanese, Portuguese, Chilean)
I added 116 bottles of Port to the cellar this year with an average age of 42 years. The oldest added was from 1887 and the youngest from 2014.
Using the 21 year rule, 62% of my port is ready for drinking (it was 61% last year, implying that 1% of my cellar comes from the 1996 vintage).
The average age of the port in my cellar is 34 years, 185 days. The bottles in my cellar gain a year of bottle age every 12 months.
88% of the undrawn port corks I own are in 75cl bottles, 8% in half bottles and 4% magnum or larger. 69% of the containers hold vintage port (which includes Quinta do Noval but excludes Quinta do Vesuvio), 25% hold Single Quinta Vintage Port (including Quinta do Vesuvio), 5% hold LBV, 1% holds crusted and 1% holds other stuff. I own 3 bottles of port which would be considered colheita port under current regulations.
The shippers making up the largest share of my port cellar are Quinta do Vesuvio (15%), Fonseca and Graham (both 8%). Looking only at the port ready for drinking the picture changes slightly to be Fonseca (10%), Graham and Warre (both 9%).
8% of my port is from the 2011 vintage with another 8% from 1963 and 6% is from 1994.
In 2016 I added 501 notes to my tasting note database bringing my total number of tasting notes up to 4,132 built up over 13 years. These cover 1,508 different ports and a further 34 port-like wines such as South African fortifieds or Douro fortified Muscatel.
I tasted 137 ports for the first time in 2016 the most surprising of which was Smith Woodhouse 1966. The best of the ports new to me were a Krohn 1900 colheita and a Tuke Holdsworth 1927, closely followed by a half bottle of Dow 1920. The most unusual wine new to me last year was a Real Companhia Velha Porto Quinado over 60 year tawny - I've read about but never tried a quinado port before.
The oldest port I tasted in 2016 was from 1827. The age profile of the ports which had a vintage associated with them was:
0-10 years - 100
11-20 years - 52
21-30 years - 38
31-40 years - 72
41-50 years - 77
51-60 years - 50
61-70 years - 11
71-80 years - 10
81-90 years - 12
91-100 years - 4
101-150 years - 6
>150 years - 2
The wine I tasted most often in 2016 were Fonseca 1985 and Graham 1970 (both 9 times) followed by Fonseca 1963 and Warre 1970 (both 6 times). The vintages I tasted most often in 2016 were 1970 (36 times), 1966 (27 times) and 1963 / 1985 (both 26 times). The shippers tasted most frequently in 2016 were Graham (47 times), Quinta do Noval (44 times) and Fonseca (35 times).
The profile of wines tasted in 2016 is similar to the profile of wines across the entire 4,000+ tasting notes in my database which has the most frequently featured shipper as Graham (364 times), Taylor (326 times) and Warre (316 times). The most frequent vintages are 1970 (318 times), 1963 (256 times) and 1985 (210 times). The wines I have tasted most often are Fonseca 1985 (41 times), Graham 1970 (40 times) and Warre 1970 (38 times).
The wines I was most impressed by in 2016 (and I will update my footer soon!) were a bottle of Cockburn 1908 (99 points), Phil's bottle of Cockburn 1912 at the Xmas offline (98 points) and the glass of Scion I had at the Yeatman in June (also 98 points). The remaining profile of points I awarded to the ports I tried in 2016 was as follows:
97 - 8 times
96 - 1 time
95 - 25 times
94 - 33 times
93 - 33 times
92 - 45 times
91 - 41 times
90 - 44 times
89 - 47 times
88 - 48 times
87 - 48 times
86 - 31 times
85 - 28 times
84 - 23 times
83 - 7 times
82 - 4 times
81 - 4 times
80 - 1 time
79 - 0 times
78 - 2 times
76 - 1 time
68 - 1 time