1985 vintage--the real scoop

[dave leach]

thank you guys for responding to my earlier thread of ports past their prime. both roy and tom have indicated that they think the 1985 vintage is pedestrian or mediocre. i've enjoyed some wonderful ports from 85, most notably the grahams and fonseca, and smith woodhouse made a nice port that year.
whats the scoop guys, is it a vintage that's been overhyped, or perhaps just coming into its prime? curious to hear all your thoughts, as i've got 40 bottles of 1985 in my cellar.

[Philip Harvey]

Dave,

You will no doubt get some very well qualified and well reasoned responses to your question from palates far more experienced and developed than mine, explaining why the 1985 vintage is not as good as 1983, 1980, perhaps even the generally 'undeclared' 1987. I have to admit to being somewhat bemused by a lot of these Port vintage debates as thus far in my admittedly limited Port journey, I have come across very few mediocre vintage Ports.

Let's think about this. The mainstream port producers are experts at what they do - they don't make bad wine. I have no idea of the exact figures (Roy help me out here) but of the many tens of thousands of litres produced by say the Symingtons across all their quintas each year, only a tiny fraction ever makes it into the big daddy, the vintage Port. And a vintage will only be declared around three times a decade. So a vintage declaration represents the very best wine, from the best producers, in only the very best years. So when we get down to comparing vintage 'A' to vintage 'B', we really are splitting hairs.

It's worth remembering, it's not like a Bordeaux Chateau that may produce 20,000 cases of the grand vin every year, whatever the quality or conditions. Vintage Port is always the very pinacle of quality. I seem to remember reading an interview with Rupert Symington somewhere where he said "there's no such thing as a bad vintage Port" and you'll have gathered by now that I think there's a lot of truth in this. It's just very good, or excellent.

So my point is that if you have forty bottles of the 1985 vintage in your cellar, I'd say you're a lucky man. Unless they're corked or tainted, in some other way damaged, you've got forty bottles of some of the very best wine produced from any region in the world, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

[SEAN C.]

I have definitely enjoyed both the 1985 Fonseca and the Grahams..I think for the money the '85's that I have tried were well worth it. I very much like the Grahams and have a case of Taylor's and almost 2 cases of Croft and have not tried yet.
I will try the Croft within a week or two although I have not heard good things it.
Maybe someone else can chime in?

[Andy Velebil]

There are others here that are more of experts with the 80's than I, but here is my .02

The 1980's are what I call the "lost decade" of Port. There was a lot of changes occuring in the Douro and the Port trade during that time. A lot of mechanization was being introduced as a cost saving to the traditional foot treading. It was, and still is, getting increasingly harder, and expensive, to find workers willing to spent the night treading in a lagare. Mechanization was billed as the new way of making Port. Interesting to see that a lot of producers have now gone back to foot treading, or a combination of both for their to VP's. I think that speaks far more than anything I can type here....

Richard Mayson also wrote about a likely culprit in 1985 was a combination of hot weather, over use of chemical fertilizers producing musts of low acidity, and poor handling and hygiene and a theroy that the wines were not fully fortified at the outset.

I have to diagree with Philip on some of his points. Some Port producers make bad wine, I've had them and they are BAD :help: Even the top producers make mistakes on occassion. Now, as for declared years, there can be a hugh difference between vintage "A" and "B" and Quinta "A" and "B"--far more than just splitting hairs. The Douro is a very big place with various micro climates within it. Where Quinta "A" might get slightly more favorable weather, Quinta "B" may get hit by poor weather at the wrong time, producing a lower quality VP.

Overall, the 80's produced Ports that were very hit-and-miss. Just look at how cheap the prices are. That being said, some great deals can be found on Ports with 20+ years on them for cheaper than 2003 VP's. I would suggest using the search function here to read through some of the TN's of Ports you're interested in to see if they are something you should buy or pass on.

[John Danza]

IMHO, the 1985's are excellent wines. I don't think they stand up to 1977, but in reality there were only a couple of vintages in the 20th century that would. These would be 1927, 1945, 1948, and 1963.

I remember an article about 5 years ago in Wine Spectator that talkled about a thread of VA that was starting to show up in the 1985s in general, and that the vintage could turn out to be not as good as originally hoped. I personally haven't run into that with the bottles of Dow, Fonseca, and Warre that I've had, but I guess they can be out there.

There's no question that the prices of the 1985s are not escalating significantly, but that can be said of all prots vintages from 1977 on. There has been some solid price degradation on most ports of vintage 1977 and later in the past 6-7 years.

For me, I'm on the hunt for good deals on 1985s. I won't have any problem having a few cases of Fonseca, Graham, Warre, or Gould Campbell in my cellar. They'll be drinking fine and keeping me happy while I wait for the 1977s, 1992s, and 1994s to come around.

All the best,
John

[Jay Powers]

1985 seems to be a fine year to me. Asides from the Fonseca and Grahams mentioned above, I am a big fan of the Warres, which has the added benifit of being fairly cheap.

I think the vintages of Warres from the 70's and 80's are very nice, the 70 in particular, followed by the 77 and then the 85. But then I'm a fan of the Warres style.

The 85 Warres is also ready to drink now, without any more aging, although I think it can go a little longer and still improve some.

The Dow's is certainly not bad, but a little below the Warres for me personally.

Jay

[tastingnote]

The only 85 I have had a few bottles of has been Grahams and they have been consistantly good (except for one which was corked) but too young. Granted, I like my ports older but they were tasty.

I've tried Churchills (Big, brash and saucy - I wrote 'Debbie does Porto!'), Warres (chocolate and plumskins) and have decanted one of my newly aquired Offley Boa Vista's for tonight so will let you know what that one is like!

Peter

[Frederick Blais]

Just as in Bordeaux, even in a bad year, there is always shining producers that do great job. Now is 1985 a bad year. Terroir wise, it is not. Conditions were ideal though a little too hot during fementation period and 20 years ago, I don't think many producers or even one had some cooling unit in the lagares to keep the temparature cool. For some producers fementation did happen too fast and yeast developped unwanted flavours due to too high fermenting temperatures.

I guess this problem is not including all producers, or even not all their bottles. Maybe one batch did suffer more than another. I'm saying this because I've had 3 bottles of Delaforce 85 within one year, one that was mature and very good and the other 2 almost undrinkable due to high volatile acidity. Then Taylor that I've had 2 times so far that some find too much VA and for me it was a great port with no flaws still waiting for 10-15 years to reach its prime.

Fonseca, Graham's and Nacional are great stars of the Vintage.

[dave leach]

great feedback fellas, i'm feeling better about my inventory after seeing your posts. i've only begun tasting my 85's in the past couple years, as i'm a firm believer in 20+ years before hitting a vp. i have found it to be superior to the 80 and 83 vintages, although they too were enjoyable. as this vintage seems to still be relatively well priced, i'm still looking for some good deals.
dave

[Ronald Wortel]

VA is a problem with some of the 1985 ports. I don't know how the same problem can occur at the same time with varied producers, but it sure does. Mayson's explanation seems plausible.

Producers that have trouble with VA in 1985 (note that I've tasted most of these ports myself, but not all. The ones I didn't taste were tasted by Steven Kooij, whose palate I trust completely): Warre's, Burmester, Romaneira, Niepoort, Sandeman. Apparently Delaforce can also be added to this list.

Other producers performed under par in 1985, e.g. Taylor, whor produced a far better 1987 than 1985 (IMO of course).

For this vintage, I'm sticking to Fonseca, I love that port. The Graham's is also good, but I don't like the Graham's style much.

[Moses Botbol]

The 85 Grahams is better than the 83, but that may be an exception?

[Marc J.]

It seems to me that since the 80's, 83's & 85's were sandwiched between the much sought-after 77's & the blockbuster (in theory) 94's - the ports of the 80s just haven't been able to command higher prices. Grahams 85, Warres 83 & Fonseca 85 are just a few of the wines from this period that are solid, top notch wines. Maybe they aren't up to the same level as Taylor's 92 or Fonseca 77, but they are impressive nevertheless.

[John Danza]

the ports of the 80s just haven't been able to command higher prices.

Marc, it's a great point and something that is great for consumers. It's a good time to pick these wines up because they aren't going to get any cheaper, and folks will wake up (like they did with Bordeaux) that you can get proven vintages for less than the cost of the latest vintages being touted in the press.

All the best,
John

[Julian D. A. Wiseman]

In this thread I am trying to buy some 1985s for a horizontal. Noval particularly wanted, but also Croft, Gould Campbell, and Offley Boa Vista. Delivery to Sussex or London (I live in NY so can't rush around the country to collect). Willing to exchange for other ports. Please reply in that thread.

When I compared them a few years ago the Taylor 1983 was so much weaker than the 1985. IMHO, 1985s are great value for money.