ThePortForum.com

Read a vintage report and you will find notes about the rainfall and temperature of the winter, spring, and summer of the year in question. The timing of budburst and flowering is also often noted, along with the range of pests and diseases that afflicted the vines.

But after reading through the reports published by Mayson (and for the most recent years, Jancis R) - there seem to be no common factors in the year prior to August that signal either a good or bad vintage.

- Unless, of course, I'm missing something...

On the other hand, if the vintage is won or lost in the last ten weeks or so, why isn't there more excitement about 2006? Although some quintas were badly damaged by hail, it appeared that most escaped unscathed.

From this report - http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/20061019 - the vintage seems to have had a near perfect conclusion.

Puzzling..

Tom

Overall it can be said that the average quality of wine made is reasonably good throughout the valley.

I did quote this from the Jancis article. Good is not exceptionnal and it is certainly not enough to declare classic VP.

When I spoke to producers in the Douro last year. Everyone was agreeing that 2006 was expecially uneven all accross the Douro. It was a microclimate Vintage. Some had too much rain, other too much sun, other had some hail.

At Ferreira, in August, one of their vineyard had bunch of grapes ripe from one side of them and green from the side not looking at the sun. The vines were in real stress by mid august that they completly stop to stay in survival mode. At the same vineyards, grapes could be completly ripe at one spot, and on the same row 20 meters appart, it could be unripe. You had to manage your vineyard to perfection with your crew to pick each plot when it was ready. Those who can't afford that would suffer from quality.

At Passadouro, they had a concern with sugar level. Wines that normally hit 14-14,5% of alcool were looking to be made at 12-13% range. There too much rain for sun ratio during the harvest time. Yes the mid september rain did save the harvest but it did not stop as they would have wish.

Same bell at Niepoort, if they had a bigger team and more places to store and ferment the grapes, the havest would have been completed before October to save the grapes from the last rainfall. To make good wines and port, it will require good skills in post harvest operations.

At qta do Carolina, too much rain did bring a concern on the PH of the wines. It was anormaly high for this estate.

Anyway, just to point out that 2006 was not a great harvest were nature does it all. It was testing every vineyard's owners and teams skills on how to adapt and react to difficult and specific conditions to each of their vineyards microclimate.

Remember that producers do control information like they want. They are not lying, they are just telling what is favorable for our opinion on their wines. Nobody will say that it was a complete mess and only 10% of the juice was of acceptable quality. We do not have a run of bad vintages since 1993 as we used to have 2 at least per decade. Global warming, better vinification or expert in communication with those big companies that arise recently

Thanks Fred - that's the 'warts and all' vintage report!

So if 2007 turns into a washout, they're not likely to declare 2006 instead - except that from the positive tilt on the Jancis report, we can probably expect a full set of SQ's.

Tom

So if it was very patchy, and lots of places were hit with too much of one thing or another, there surely has to be the reverse of that in a few lucky spots.
It sounds like its worth jotting in the memory bank that some of those SQ's and the like, MIGHT be absolute crackerjacks, hidden in an average year?

Alan

Quite possibly. There's a good chance that some of the big quinta's that seem to have escaped the hail - such as Vargellas and Vesuvio - will have been able to select enough perfectly ripe grapes to fill a lagar or two.

Tom

Si It's SQ's for 2006 . . .
After all , we can't have VP's every year .

2006 seems to be a good opportunity for honesty in the trade. There were undoubtedly casualties in the hail storm but there were also areas that were not hit by this trauma. Other factors are mentioned above but it does seem that there were areas where growing conditions were favourable. Wouldn't it be nice to see some big houses declare purely on quality whilst others could not due to poor quality or very low quantity.

We can always dream

Derek

Derek , your Warre's Otima is now 11yrs old , I am jealous . . . well , not , really . ( but 600 posts , holly diaper rash , Batman !! )