As I write this, the 2000 vintage is beginning to be offered by the trade. The following is a summary of the notes I made at various tastings put on for the trade and for journalists during 2002.
Personal favourites include all the 'usual suspects', Fonseca, Taylor's, Graham's and Noval Nacional, with a few pleasant surprises, like Cockburn, who seem finally to have come back into the Vintage club again at last. As uusual there are a handful of less well known shippers who shine, but are never going to have the distribution that the big-boys have, and some good single quinta wines too.
This should have been a vintage where making thin wine was difficult, but some have managed it, with one or two real disappointments.
Very classy wine with massively rich and open nose dominated by blackcurrant and plumy fruit. Very firm tannic structure. The richness means this should be approachable at a relatively early stage but will continue to develop for decades.
Perhaps inevitably this was the star of the show, but it is available in such tiny volumes you will not find it easily. Not a blockbuster on the palate but a fine with great finesse and elegance, with both fruit and spice on abundance on the nose and palate. A real charmer.
Softer than expected with tannins not as evident as they might be. Floral, cyprus-tree notes, good balance on the palate. Classic Warre's style.
A big brooding wine. very deep in colour, even against its peers, with huge fruit. As so often the case with Fonseca, the sweetness initially covers the tannin so it seems less structured at first, but the tannins come in at the end of the palate. A real long- term wine.
it would be surprising if Taylor didn't make it into the top ten. Fantastic freshness and purity of fruit is backed up by a monstrous tannic structure. Mouth-filling intensity and concentration. Another long-lived wine that you will need to cellar for a long time.
Cockburn has come back into the vintage Port club again at last with both full vintage and a single Quinta wine. Their plantings at Canais have come on stream now and Miguel Corte Real claims that they now have the largest planting of Touriga Nacional in the region. The full vintage is more complex and has firmer structure than the single quinta wine. The wisdom, or otherwise, of declaring both a full vintage and the single quinta wine in the same, great year is due for discussion here in the near future.