For The Love Of Port

Here is the offering from Rare Wine Company:

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/ren ... FCR1n-0%3D

The link says it's the 2004 VVV, but on pre-arrival from a British collector... so I'm confused. Is this supposed to be fore the '04 or the '07?

In either case, $135 seems like a pretty good deal for VVV!

It says in the article that the declared VV in 1997. Shouldn't this be 1995? I know this probably isn't the place to discuss this, but do you think the VV will one day be as great as NN? My limited knowledge of port puts me in a weak place to answer this but comments would be appreciated.

It's the 2004...just called, they are all out at the moment.

Alex,

Yes, it was a mistake as Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha has been declared in 1995 as you mentioned,(for the first time) and then 1997, 2000, 2004 and now again in 2007 ... just the 5th time in history. The parcel where these old vine grapes comes from is pretty special. I realize that to some it may appear to be trying to compete with Nacional, but at least from my experience ... these do not reach that same level. I think the Q d VVVVP's are very solid and I have tried all of them at least twice, but although magnificently concentrated they have a ways to go to approach the shher intensity of the great Nacional VPs. Oddly, the vines in the Nacional vineyard, on average, are younger than those used for this bottling at Vargellas. Maybe in the future they will be closer in quality, but I think even blind the difference would be marked. The major differentiation may stem from the ungrafted "Nacional" vines at Noval in their 2.5 hectare parcel.