Making the best of a weak vintage

[angeleyes]

Would a weak vintage be better off left in the barrel and bottled later as a colheita?

I ask because I have had very good colheitas from '82 and '84. As vintage proper the former appears to give very mixed results (as seen in the recent offline), and the latter very little seems to be available (was it a weak year?).

[JacobH]

Would a weak vintage be better off left in the barrel and bottled later as a colheita?

This is a very interesting question and it would be really interesting to hear what some of the producers think of it. I think, and they will correct me if I am wrong, that you need good fruit to make good colheita, just as you need good fruit to make good Vintage Port, so it's not possible to throw weaker wines in a barrel in the hope that they will turn into a decent colheita at some point in the future.

However, militating against that is that colheita production is much lower than Vintage Port so you'd only need a few good pipes of Port to be able to produce a commercial bottling. You could therefore cherry pick the best fruit from the best parts of the vineyards to get a small parcel of excellent wine in all but the worst years. I winder if this is particularly why there is a lot of colheita from "secondary years"; in the best years all the excellent wines goes into the Vintage Port, but in the secondary ones, the very best can be set aside to mature in wine.

Another factor is that you also have the flexibility in that colheita drinkers are far less vintage-concerned than Vintage Port drinkers are. Since Vintage Port is declaration when the wine is so young, the quality of the harvest and the width of the declaration are vital for marketing purposes whereas Colheita is bottled at maturity for a less vintage-concerned market, allowing a good wine in a bad year to "speak for itself". I also think I am right in thinking that very little colheita is laid down as "colheita", rather it is allowed to mature for the first few years with a view to it either becoming a colheita (if it is good enough) or, otherwise, being blended into a Tawny Port which would give the producers a bit more flexibility to see how a wine develops.

[Andy Velebil]

Would a weak vintage be better off left in the barrel and bottled later as a colheita?

Not at all, you still need good grapes to start with, bad grapes are bad grapes. And although many don't believe this, VP is relatively easy to make and a very good Colheita is extremely hard to make (yes a simple analogy, but ask any wine maker and they'll say the same) Colheita's are a wine makers crowning achievement since at any point during its aging process something can go wrong. And often times these pipes of Port are passed down through several generations to watch over and care for.

I winder if this is particularly why there is a lot of colheita from "secondary years"; in the best years all the excellent wines goes into the Vintage Port, but in the secondary ones, the very best can be set aside to mature in wine.

You hit the nail-on-the-head. In non-major declared years the best grapes can be set aside to make very good wood-aged Ports. Whereas in a declared year the best grapes are earmarked for VP production. Of course we are speaking generally as each House has it's own specialty and may earmark their grapes for different things than other Houses.

mature in wine

I assume you mean wood?

I also think I am right in thinking that very little colheita is laid down as "colheita", rather it is allowed to mature for the first few years with a view to it either becoming a colheita (if it is good enough) or, otherwise, being blended into a Tawny Port which would give the producers a bit more flexibility to see how a wine develops.

It has to be declared and registered as a Colheita to the IVDP within 6 (or was it 7) years after harvest, or it cannot be called a Colheita. So they have that time to evaluate it and make a determination. If they don't declare/register it within that time frame, it can only be sold as a Non-vintage Tawny.

[Glenn E.]

Would a weak vintage be better off left in the barrel and bottled later as a colheita?

Not at all. According to one producer who was a guest at FTLOP, the grapes required to make a great Colheita are simply different than the grapes required to make a great VP. Not better, not worse... just different. If a producer wants to go to the trouble to do so, they can make both wines in the same year with careful grape selection. But as Andy has already mentioned:

In non-major declared years the best grapes can be set aside to make very good wood-aged Ports. Whereas in a declared year the best grapes are earmarked for VP production. Of course we are speaking generally as each House has it's own specialty and may earmark their grapes for different things than other Houses.

In my experience, Noval and Kopke have both produced outstanding Colheitas in non-Vintage years, so this may be how they're doing it. Remember that contrary to conventional wisdom, Colheita is rarer than Vintage Port. (I would have said it is the rarest, but Dirk still makes Garrafeira.) Only about half as much Colheita is produced as Vintage Port, so it requires fewer good grapes to do so.