194 Port anD the Douro
prove good wine as there was an absolute absence of disease of any kind.’ The wines are now
scarce but from tasting on a number of occasions (most recently at the Seattle Port weekend)
the 1934s have the edge over 1935s in terms of structure but lack the elegance and finesse.
Sandeman (tasted in 2011) is tight-knit and focused although not as expressive as the 1935.
Fonseca is well structured, aromatic, alive and very, very fine. Ramos Pinto is fresh and
delicate and Dow’s is soft, smooth and sweet with a rather lean tannic grip. Niepoort have
an impressive 1934 colheita.
Pick of the Vintage: Fonseca.
1932
I have only ever tasted one wine from this generally undeclared year, a Fonseca Guimaraens
which was high toned but still sweet and fresh, albeit more like a colheita than a vintage,
in 2003.
1931 ***** an outstanding year; overlooked by most shippers
Bypassed by the majority of shippers because it coincided with the worldwide depression,
1931 is almost certainly the best year never to have been fully declared. The trade was still
well stocked with the 1927s and every one of the British shippers ignored 1931. As a result
there are few records of the 1931 vintage but the wines that have survived are outstanding
and count among the best I have tasted.
Ernest Cockburn writes that ‘demand this year was unusually small and the produce of
some quintas could be bought at very low prices which hardly paid the farmer’s expenses’.
According to Amyas Warre, the summer ‘was conspicuous for low temperatures, and
although just before and during the vintage warmer weather prevailed, the grapes have
never ripened properly... In the finer vineyards some good wine with plenty of colour is
promised but elsewhere the mostos [musts] are thin and green. There was however very
little if any mildew this year and consequently no escolha [selection] was necessary. The
quantity of wine produced especially of VT [Vinho Tinto / Red Wine] is rather more than
expected (about 30 per cent) and as the wines were free of disease and the fermentation
of the musts regular it is probable that the wines will be sound.’
They were in fact a great deal better than ‘sound’. One of very few shippers to declare
was Quinta do Noval, which built its reputation on this vintage. The Nacional is so rare that
Christian Seeley (President and Managing Director of Noval) has only had the opportunity
to taste it on one occasion and the wine was oxidised, the cork having dried out! It still
commands the highest price ever paid for a bottle of vintage Port (5,900 US$ at a restaurant
in 1988). I have never had the opportunity to taste the Nacional but the straight Quinta
do Noval which I have tasted on a number of occasions, is, I am told, nearly as good. Last
tasted from in 2003 from an English bottling, the wine still shows few signs of age, is still
youthful on the nose with a wonderfully fresh, assertive, powerful flavour and peacock’s tail
of a finish. Niepoort also declared a deep, dense 1931, which was effectively ‘late bottled’
and still looks youthful and very impressive. Other shippers kept back small quantities of