Whenever the wine cognoscenti talk about Port they talk about Vintage Port, seen by many as the finest wine the Douro has to offer. Vintage Port is the wine of one exceptional year, matured briefly before bottling and subsequently for an extended time. It should be a wine of great elegance, finesse and power, capable of enormous ageing potential.
Unlike other Ports or other wine, Vintage Port is not made every year. Typically, the most prestigious houses will declare about three vintages each decade. In the 1990s we had 1997, 1994 and 1991, with a few preferring 1992 instead. The 80s gave us 1985, 1983 and 1980, the seventies were 1977, 1975 and 1970 and the sixties were 1966, 1963 and 1960.
When young, Vintage Port is a deep, staining black purple red on colour, powerfully aromatic, and hugely concentrated with a massive tannic structure but it is fundamentally a simple wine, smelling and tasting of dark fruit, but lacking complexity. As it aged, sometimes for decades, the colour and structure fade and the fruit develops into the wonderfully complex bouquet of fruit and spice, often with hints of liquorice, or cedar, yet in many cases retaining an almost floral delicacy at the same time.
The wine is the product of the finest grapes from the finest quintas, today mostly quintas owned by the shippers. Until 2000 it was virtually all foot-trodden, and the majority still is, although there is an increasing move towards robotic lagares (see Man vs Machine in the Features section.
The young wine matures for a brief time in bulk, before being bottled ready for long, slow maturation in the bottle, preferably in cool, dark conditions. (See storage and service) Samples can be put forward to the IVP in January of the second year after the vintage and bottling, which today must be done in Portugal, will start as soon as the wines have been approved. It must be completed by the middle of the third year after the vintage. The 2000s will have been bottled any time between late January 2002 and mid 2003, most were bottled as early as possible. Vintage Port is not fined, filtered or cold stabilised.
Prior to the 2000 vintage, the wines could not be bottled until the middle of the second year. As the Port companies are closed for most of August, and the busy with the new harvest in September, this meant that in many cases the wines did not go into bottle until the end of the second year.
Until the 1970 vintage most vintage Port was bottled in the UK by the importing wine merchants, sometimes leading to considerable variation in what should be the same wine.
You should consider opening vintage Port from a top shipper and year only after about twenty years. The 1980s are drinking well now, as are the 77s. The 83s and 85s are still far too young to broach. Oddly my recent experience of the 1991s shows that some of them are quite forward.
Vintage Port, because it matured on bottle, throws a considerable sediment and must therefore be decanted. This is no black art, and is all too often wine "experts" try to make it seem more difficult than it really is. Decanting is simply careful pouring of wine from one bottle to another, leaving the sediment, or crust, behind.
In an ideal world, we would all buy our Vintage Port when released and it would lie in the cellar until ready, completely undisturbed. The sediment will form into homogeneous crust which will stay largely in place as the wine is poured off. But for most of us life just isn't like that. Bottles are bought closer to maturity, cellars are moved, and the crust gets broken up.
If the wine has been disturbed the safest option is to move the bottle from the rack as early as possible before you want to serve it, one day in advance will be fine. Stand it upright somewhere where it will not get disturbed and allow the sediment to fall to the base of the bottle. You may want to remove the capsule at this point too, especially if is an old wax capsule.
Uncork the wine just before you decant it, shortly before service. Younger vintages can be opened a few hours in advance but the older they are the later you should decent them; even Vintage Port gets fragile with age. Because Vintage Port has not been exposed to air during its maturation it will start to oxidize quite rapidly. Ideally the wine should be finished in one sitting, or at least kept for just a couple of days. Younger examples are more robust and will hold for a few days.
Single Quinta vintage Ports are generally made in the years in between classic vintages, where the wines are not considered good enough to declare as full vintages, they are made in good rather than great years. These are generally seen as, and marketed as second labels; just as a top Bordeaux estate has a second wine, so top shippers have their Single Quinta Ports. Unfortunately for the beginner, there are exceptions. One or two Single Quintas are seen as the top wines. A detailed article on this is in preparation.
Most single quinta vintages are earlier maturing than full vintages, ready perhaps ten to fifteen years after the harvest. In many cases they are not released until approaching maturity, but do not assume there is any hurry to drink them up.
For an overview of recent Port vintages, click here.