For The Love Of Port

Hello everyone. I look forward to answering some of your questions.
Looking forward to "speaking" to you throughout the week.
Dominic

You will all be most welcome, the food is good!

Have a good weekend,

Paul

Hi Roy and Andy, to let you know that a bad hailstorm hit us here yesterday afternoon at 5pm. The storm was forecast, but not the extent of the hail. Some vineyards in the Pinhao valley have been shredded. Others just got a welcome drenching of water. But where the hail hit, it is really not good, w...

"our visit at Graham’s was the highlight of our afternoon in Porto; the wines were excellent, and the customer service was easily the best we encountered in Porto." I gave a copy of this comment to our team at the Graham's Lodge with thanks for such a great endorsement of the way you were ...

Dear John. Thank you for your comment on Dow's LBV. Dow's has not offered the "traditional" bottle matured style of LBV for many years. All Dow's LBV's for the last 30 years have been cask aged for 5 or 6 years, fined & racked before bottling and made available for immediate consumptio...

Thanks for this post Derek, we are all excited at the challenge of getting to work on this great and historic Port brand. As you say, our family is totally committed to Port and to the Douro, so we know the roots of this company extremely well. It will be fun to be able to define the next chapter fo...

Cynthia & Roy, I feel like a daring agency! ... what about at Vesuvio on 7th. Roy I promise I won't tell yout wife! Weather is absolutely perfect but now distinctly cool in the morning and evening, bring pullovers! Maturations are still a bit varied and we're delaying TN & TF at Vesuvio to g...

Fairly heavy showers in Porto last night but they didn't manage to climb over the Marão! Forecast is for warming up over the weekend. We'll see what next week brings.
Dom symington
(and FCP still managed to win their match!!!)

Below find a note by my cousin Charles on the current situation in the Douro "Since the last report in July no rain has been registered in the Douro, temperatures have been normal for this time of year. Veraison was around a week later than usual and therefore maturations at this point are behi...

Thanks Roy, The latest report (July) is now online at: http://www.thevintageportsite.com/vintageReport.aspx?pg=7 There are links to previous months on the left, and previous years elsewhere on the site. After an exceedingly hot first two weeks of August temperatures have dropped a little over the la...

There is of course a website where a 'Douro Insider' posts an excellent monthly report not only giving exhaustive details of climatic developments but also providing explanations of ongoing viticultural operations. With any luck July's should be online within a few days. Are we allowed to mention th...

a quick up-date on the conditions at Bomfim in Pinhão. The weather has been extremely hot, 33º-35ºC. consitently every day for the last 10 days with night-time temperatures not dropping significantly below about 25ºC. In the last couple of days a thick haze has settled over the region as a result of...

Cynthia, it's to be the CS Vintage Hotel. The same guy that now owns Vintage House in Pinhão. Apparantly an all steel and smoked glass affair which I'm not sure quite fits in with Gaia!
Dom Symington

Hi Andy, yes you're right the conditions have been quite tricky! We had a ton of rain all winter which was exactly what we needed after 3 exceptionally dry years. The vines have reacted really very well but this has in its own way created some problems. Generally they vines are in perfect condition,...

Hello Dom Carter, The comments that you make with regard to our Graham's 2005 LBV are utterly unrecognisable with regard to the wine that we have made and bottled, from any objective standpoint. It could be that this wine is TCA affected; this can certainly happen to any Port with a stopper cork alt...

Hello everybody, It was a good race this year, we had a fair wind from the west, in fact it turned slightly south west during the race. This made the race fun this year rather than the boring drifting that has occurred in some years when nothing but the incoming tide pushes us up the river. The othe...

Hello Roy et al... When TFP launched Croft Pink there wasn't a category for this style of wine and the IVDP authorised it as a "light ruby". Shortly after the successful launch and considering the potential, the Trade agreed to the creation of a new category, Rosé which would cover the Cro...

Hi Andy, I was interested to read your tasting note on the Dow´s 1927. I think that my grandfather Maurice would have liked the idea that a wine that he made in the Douro would have been tasted by you in LA exactly 82 years after he had made it. My grandfather was born here in Porto in 1895 in the A...

[quote="Eric MenchenThank-you also Dan. I wish I could have been around and gotten a question in. I'm still wondering about the correct pronunciation of Warre's. [/quote]

Hi Eric. Warre's is pronounced like the war in World War I but with an s on the end.

Cheers

Well, I think that just about does it. I would like to thank Roy for inviting me to sit in the hot seat this week and to all of you who took the time to post some really good questions. I have enjoyed it and hope that you found it a good read. More importantly, I urge you to continue doing what you ...