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Single Quinta Saviours
“standfirst”>Thankfully, the situation has been eased by a change of emphasis, with houses releasing tactical ruby products to play the promotional game, subjecting them to big discounts to take some of the heat off LBV. Guest columnist this month: Richard Woodard.
In theory, I should be close to the perfect target Port consumer; conveniently situated in that fertile middle ground in age terms, the 30-45 demographic when people start trading up and devoting more of their disposable income to premium drinks products. I know my single quinta from my aged tawny and, last but not least, I rather like the taste of the stuff.
And yet here I am asking myself this question, why don’t I drink Port more often? It’s hardly a default mechanism for me to reach for the LBV at the end of dinner at home, or order a glass of 10-year-old tawny with my dessert when eating out.
But it’s not just me; ask a table of friends or family what they want to drink at or after a meal, and you won’t get trampled in the rush to uncork anything from the Douro. I won’t say it never happens – I won’t even say it only ever happens at Christmas – but we just don’t drink much Port. Simple as that.
The irony is that Port today offers one of the best value premium products in the whole of the drinks industry. I’m not talking about the volume-driving ruby products which get so heavily promoted in the run-up to Christmas (but more of those later). And I’m not talking about the much hyped declared house vintages, which are often sensational, but tend to give the bank manager an anxiety attack. I’m talking about LBV, aged tawnies and single quinta vintages. These are the Ports which should, in theory, be a regular part of my drinking routine.
At first glance, a tutored tasting of a range of vintage Ports from the Symington Family Estates, some of them older than me, might not seem the ideal place to change my way of thinking, let alone my way of drinking. Arguing over the relative merits of the Dow’s ‘63, the Warre’s ‘66 and the Graham’s ‘70 is in many ways a purely academic exercise, however enjoyable, because even assuming you could find any of these at auction, the price is likely to be prohibitive.
But this is not such a one-dimensional process as the usual “go to tasting, find good wine, recommend it to your readers” routine. The fascination of charting the evolution of these wines sets other thoughts in train. The legendary Dow’s ‘63 still had an astonishing intensity and endless finish, while the Warre’s ‘66 emerged from its shadow with a display of elegance and beautifully pristine fruit. And the Graham’s ‘70, a mix of floral notes, flesh and muscle, should get better still into its fifth decade.
Those, along with one or two others (don’t get me started on the Warre’s ‘85), were the obvious attention-grabbers at the tasting – but they weren’t the most exciting wines there.
Graham’s Malvedos 1996, a single quinta vintage which retails for £20-something in the UK, is a beautifully structured, perfectly balanced wine; even better, it’s within my reach financially. Ditto for the immensely promising Dow’s Senhora da Ribeira 2004, a model of concentration, acidity and grip.
My point is that while tasting vintages like 1963 and 1985 might pull in the punters, their “halo effect” is worth nothing if they have nothing to cast that halo over. That’s where the single quintas come in – and, in fact, I would have liked to see at least one LBV in the line-up (unfiltered, bottle-matured Warre’s being the obvious candidate) to illustrate the complete lineage. If single quintas are “baby” vintages, then so by extension are good LBVs; both have their roots squarely in the heritage and expertise of many decades of vintage declarations.
That makes the heavy pre-Christmas promotion and discounting of LBVs in the UK off-trade in recent years all the more nonsensical. Of course Port needs to push volume sales at such a crucial time of the year, but why use your key premium product to do it?
Thankfully, the situation has been eased in the past year or two by a change of emphasis, with houses releasing tactical ruby products to play the promotional game, subjecting them to big discounts to take some of the heat off LBV. Long may it continue; the short-term effect on volumes may be drastic, but the long-term preservation of the category has to take precedence.
There’s enough good-quality, relatively cheap ruby out there to make this possible, and Port as a category will be stronger if the premium vintage line – all the way from house vintages through single quintas to LBVs – is kept strong.
And me? I’m not drinking Port at every meal, but at least it’s an increasing part of my “drinking repertoire”, as the marketing experts call it. And hopefully, as people learn more about these fascinating wines, I won’t be alone.
© db November 2006