Richard Mayson reports on his findings from a tasting of single-quinta Vintage Port shared with Simon Field MW and Andrew Jefford.
There is a riddle that has both exercised and bemused the Port trade for more than 50 years: When is a Vintage Port not a Vintage Port? The answer: when it is a single-quinta Vintage Port. The so-called SQVP has been around since the 1960s and has gained ground from the late 1970s onward, but its origins are pre-phylloxera. Like many of the great châteaux of Bordeaux, the great quintas(estates) of the Douro began to be laid out in the 18th century. Of course, the Douro’s terrain is very different, and with one or two notable exceptions, there is no room on the steep terraced slopes for the palatial dwellings identified with a château. Douro quintasare more modest (the word translates as “farm”), ranging from a few hectares of vines (without a house), and running to estates with many hundreds of hectares in remote communities that are almost self-sustaining. One of the grandest, Quinta do Vesúvio, extends to 326ha (805 acres) and has its own railway station.
The first Vintage Ports, dating from the end of the 18th century, were probably single quinta. Shippers based in Oporto would venture upstream and select the best wine from a property to ship and bottle under the name of a British wine merchant. The brand names of the shippers themselves only became prominent toward the end of the 19th century, by which time much-reduced yields due to oidium, then phylloxera, caused the shipper to blend their best wines in a vintage lote under their own name. Only a few quintaskept their identity, the outstanding example being Quinta do Noval, which gained a reputation as an independent shipper under Luís Vasconcellos Porto in the early to mid-20th century. Other properties were bought up by leading wine shippers, particularly after the Church relinquished its powers on property in the 19th century.
While the average size of a vineyard plot in the Douro is still tiny, over the years there has been a tendency for the more prominent Douro quintasto increase in dimension and importance. Since the 1970s, slopes abandoned during phylloxera have been replanted and new plots have been tacked on, particularly in the best terroirs classified as A and B on the official scale. Quinta do Noval, for example, has grown to take up an entire slope of the Pinhão Valley and now overflows into the neighboring Roncão Valley, such that it encompasses a number of different terroirs. Nowadays, with nearly 200ha (500 acres) of vineyard to its name, AXA-owned Noval justifies its place as a shipper in its own right. This is why Quinta do Noval Vintage Ports do not appear in this tasting.
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The expansion of many leading quintas, alongside improvements in viticulture and vinification from the late 1970s onward, means that the production of top-quality Port is much less of a hit-or-miss affair than it was 50 years ago. Unless the harvest happens to be a complete washout (1993 and 2002 are the two most recent examples), wines of potential Vintage quality can now be made every year. The shippers have consequently been faced with a dilemma: how to market wines from good interim years without undermining or diluting the reputation of a fully fledged Vintage, generally declared three times a decade. The solution to this problem was either to create a second label (Fonseca Guimaraens, for example) or to separate the best wines from single estates or quintas, wines that might well form part of a declared vintage lote. In Port parlance, the distinction is now made between single-quinta and classic Vintage Port. The Port and Douro Wine Institute (IVDP), however, treats second-label and SQVPs in exactly the same way as fully declared Vintage Ports and subjects the wines to just the same rules. It is the shippers who behave differently, releasing some single-quinta wines when they are first bottled (approximately two years after the vintage or harvest), as well as keeping stocks back to release at a later date when they are considered to be mature. As a rule of thumb, a SQVP is considered ready to drink at around ten years of age, whereas a so-called classic Vintage requires 20 years in bottle before being broached. In this tasting, with wines dating from 2022 back to 1994, the drinking dates exercised the taster’s palates, and we drew some rather different conclusions.
As Andrew Jefford pointed out, SQVPs offer the promise of “site individuation.” Recently, some shippers have taken that a step further, bottling a Vintage Port from grapes grown on specific terraces. I have termed these wines “site specific,” an example of such being Capela do Vesúvio 2022, which was submitted to this tasting. Jefford delved further into the riddle of Vintage Port, describing single-quinta wines as having a “double vocation [that] makes them slightly hard to read. Are you tasting above all a distinctive site? Or are you tasting the best effort of a large house in an undeclared year?” The answer to this is that in the case of a large shipper, you are tasting both, but in the case of an independent estate you are tasting the best from a distinctive site, which sometimes happens to coincide with a classic declared year. It should be recalled that the single-quinta category was granted a considerable fillip by the European Union in 1986, when independent growers were permitted to export their wines directly from the Douro without passing through the entreposto or entrepôt of Vila Nova de Gaia, which was effectively a shipper’s cartel. There are still barriers to entering the market as a single, independent quinta (you have to carry a minimum stock), but in this tasting, for example, Quinta da Côrte, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta da Pacheca, Quinta do Vale Meão, and even Quinta do Vesúvio are names that stand independently of a larger shipper, even though the latter belongs to the Symington family, which also owns Cockburn’s, Dow’s, Graham’s, and Warre’s. These properties tend to behave more like a Bordeaux château, producing a Vintage Port nearly every year (though Vesúvio passed on 2020 because of the absence of foot-treading due to Covid).
A distinctive and unique thrill
In this tasting, we were delighted to receive no fewer than 11 wines from the recent 2022 vintage. This is an exemplary single-quinta year, one of those harvests that might have been a classic but for September rain. July was the hottest since 1931 (a legendary but generally undeclared year), and ripening was very variable, but this barely showed up in the wines, which generally displayed good purity of fruit and definition. Our joint top mark went to the 2022 Quinta do Vesúvio, and seven wines from 2022 scored 90 points or more. The 2021s and 2020s were more mixed: ’21 was a cooler year, and I marked one wine down for tasting “green,” whereas ’20 was extremely challenging in the vineyard, not helped by social distancing in the winery. However, both our 2020s earned more than 90 points. 2019 was another exemplary single-quinta vintage, and the wines are generally forward, easygoing, and on the cusp of being ready to drink. The 2018 vintage was exceptional for some, particularly in the Douro Superior subregion farthest from the coast. It was declared outright by some (notably Taylor’s, which made an unprecedented third classic declaration in a row), but for most it was an outstanding single-quinta year, notably for Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais, which gained the second-highest mark in the tasting. Three years—2017, 2016, and 2015—were all either partly or generally declared years, and we received one wine from each, all from independent single quintas. I particularly enjoyed the trio of wines from 2014, possibly the weakest year of the decade but one that is lovely for drinking now and rather defines the purpose of the SQVP. I was surprised that we did not receive more wines from 2013, 2012, and 2010, all of which were single-quinta years, wines that are drinking well now and should be on the supermarket shelves this Christmas. We received a smattering of wines from older vintages including 2004 (another exemplary single-quinta vintage) and two wines from widely declared years 2007 and 1994, neither of which performed particularly well.
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So, is there a pattern to this tasting? Andrew Jefford commented that “all of the wines until 2014 seemed to have been made on the basis that ‘riper was better”’ and came to the “overwhelming conclusion” that “Port aesthetics [post-2014] have changed.” This was echoed by Simon Field, who felt that the younger wines were “conspicuously less raw and austere than [they] might well have been of old.” There was certainly more consistency among the younger wines, with a few of the older wines tasting overextracted and unbalanced, something that perhaps emerges with time in bottle. Andrew Jefford describes these wines as a “heroic failure”—heroic in that they will still last 30 or 40 years, but a failure in that they were unbalanced. Simon Field concluded that “Vintage Port is still king […] and there is a distinct possibility that the single-quinta wines will be best, relatively speaking, in less good vintages.” Overall, I concur with Andrew Jefford that the tasting was “a treat […] there is no way to bond with the gifts of the earth quite like this.” All three tasters were of the opinion that you can enjoy the more recent wines young—that is, earlier than the ten-year rule of thumb. As Andrew Jefford concluded, “Don’t just drink them when they are old”; there is “a thrill, excitement, and challenge in this tasting, an experience you can find nowhere else in the wine world.” The great beauty here comes from the exuberance, definition, and wonderful purity of fruit that already shines through in years like 2022, ’19, ’18, and ’14. That is the vocation of the SQVP and is sufficient to justify the two categories of Port in the Vintage riddle.
Simon Field MW’s verdict
SF: The single-quinta category is somewhat enigmatic, problematic even. Today’s ever more precise interest in provenance might incline one to think that more focus on a specific site might well rejuvenate the somewhat somnolent Vintage Port market; yet there is the nagging inference that in a Vintage year, the best blends from the showcase quintas should always, and will always, be diverted into what has long been seen as the sine qua non of the Port canon. And anyway, surely the very fact that the wine is fortified somewhat undermines the need to minutely delimit the parcels of provenance? Vintage is still king, in other words, and there is a distinct possibility that the single-quinta wines will be best, relatively speaking, in the less good vintages. This does not offer clarity by way of a marketing message.
Be that as it may, this was an enjoyable tasting, with a wide variety of styles on display, the variety mostly but not always a result of the activity in the winery rather than the vineyard. One can, therefore, describe a Dow’s style, but one is less inclined, perhaps, to rehearse the precise characteristics of a Bomfim. A lot of this is bred in the bone and may be ripe for change.
Some excellent wines were showcased, and I found that two of my top marks went to two of the biggest names (Vesúvio ’22 and Vargellas ’19), which may gainsay the argument that I have just essayed on terroir! Most of the wines were young (all but seven of the 37 still in their first decade) but far from lacking in appeal—and an appeal that is conspicuously less raw and austere than it might well have been of old. That is not to say that we are necessarily being encouraged to drink the single quintas in their youth—perish the thought. The 2018s and ’19s were all showing extremely well (would that there were more of them)—ample demonstration, in fact, that the singe quintas can be very neatly supervised in the better years. This is as it should be.
Andrew Jefford’s verdict
AJ: I enjoy tasting young Vintage Port more than any other wine style bar none, for multiple reasons (see my Drinking with the Valkyries). This tasting was thus a treat. Maximum concentration required, but maximum reward, too. Moments like this make me very glad that I am not yet dead—there is no way to bond to the gifts of the earth quite like this. Quinta wines all qualify as Vintage Ports—but of course they offer a different promise: site individuation. And we also have to accept that they promise “the best vintage effort” of most large houses in “undeclared” years. This double vocation makes them slightly hard to read. Are you tasting above all a distinctive site? Or are you in fact tasting the best vintage effort of a large house in an “undeclared” year? The two propositions promise different rewards, but in a blind tasting, you just have to make the best of what is coming at you.
The overwhelming conclusion of this tasting is that Port aesthetics have changed. All of the wines up until 2014 seemed to have been made on the basis that “riper was better” and that overripe was best of all, as if to prove that the lesser year could be in some sense greater, or that the single site necessarily had to eclipse the blend. This was a heroic failure. Heroic—since some of these wines are titanic and will still last for 30 or 40 years. But a failure in that almost none of them is balanced. From 2014, we slip into much more of a vintage-reflecting logic, though with the proviso (on the basis of this tasting) that in the best vintages, most of the wines disappear into a house’s Vintage blends. We had just one 2016 and one 2017. Alas. The ’16 was good, and the ’17 just okay, but you can’t draw conclusions from that. With ’18, ’19, and ’20, things were more interesting, and each vintage gave us exciting wines. Without seeing their origins, it is hard to draw conclusions here. The lesson of ’22 is surely that it becomes most interesting to buy quinta wines in near-miss vintages, of which 2022 was a prime example. Agreed, the summer of ’22 was extreme, but prior to the rains of September ’22 it would surely have produced some magnificent Vintage Ports. Once it rained (extensively, as Richard Mayson has explained), that was no longer possible—but you don’t destroy wonderful raw ingredients quite so quickly, particularly when rain is falling on parched vineyard “soils” that, in any case, are composed of schists that drain to 160ft (50m) more quickly than you can say “Pinhão.” The result is a really exciting offer of quinta Ports, and the best are well worth buying. Final note: Don’t just drink them when they are old. I really, really enjoyed the thrill, excitement, and challenge of this tasting, an experience you can find nowhere else in the wine world, and I don’t see why any Port lover shouldn’t share in this experience. If you wait 30 years to try everything, you’ll miss all of that. Idiotic!
The full results of the tasting will be published on worldoffinewine.com tomorrow.
