A week ago I
was back in Porto – my second visit this year.
Lovely.
This time I
was here with the board of The Vintage Port Club, and the main reason was the
Enthronement Ceremony at the Confraria do Vinho do Porto
and the dinner after. But we arrived a couple of days before and off course we
spent our time visiting port lodges for meetings and tastings. Everywhere we
were welcomed with great hospitality and kindness.
The first
day we met Alvaro van Zeller from Barão de Vilar and Maynards, who visited the
Club for our annual Winemaker’s Dinners earlier this year. Alvaro kindly poured
from his old stocks of Colheita and from bottles in the tasting room. First we
had 2003 in
two different blends – one of them sweet and heavy with a lot of coconut
flavor. Then we had a 10 years white Tawny followed by white colheitas from
2004 and 2003 and colheitas from 1998, 1970, 1963, 1947 and 1934. My favorite
again was 1963 with its great balance, but 1947 was great as well, very dark
and intense with caramel. 1934 is off course delicious, but for my taste it is
a bit too concentrated with its balsamic character. I prefer more freshness
like in the 1963.
The visit
at Barão de Vilar had another purpose. The Vintage Port Club will celebrate its
25th years Anniversary later this year. The club was established in
1989 by a group of Port lovers. The Anniversary will be celebrated in two ways.
We will arrange an international event and a big tasting of Vintage 1994, and
at the date of the founding of the Club we will have a tasting of both Vintage
and Colheitas from 1989. Besides this we will release our own White Colheita
1989. It is Alvaro van Zeller who has found a cask and blended our Jubilee Port.
After the
visit we were have dinner with Alvaro in the restaurant Bacalhau in Ribeira – a
very nice family owned place with good Portuguese cooking.
The next
couple of days we visited several Port Lodges. Some reports will follow soon.
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