Vintage Port
A Vintage Port is a wine made from a single, exceptional year that spends no longer than two years in barrel before being bottled. This stipulation as to how long a Vintage Port may spend in barrel may seem odd but Ports age far more quickly in barrel than in bottle, and for a Vintage Port to reach its superb best it needs to age slowly. When Vintage Ports are bottled, they are bottled on their lees (yeasts and grape skin residues) which helps the wines live and develop while in the bottle. This bottling on its lees accounts for why Vintage Ports need to be decanted as they tend to ‘throw’ a sediment, whereas many other Ports do not.
Vintage Ports are incredibly rare, typically accounting for around 3% of any year’s production. Add to this the fact that Vintage Port years are not ‘declared’ very often – about 3 times a decade on average – and you get an idea of quite how rare these wonderful wines are.
The reason that Vintages are not declared – a declaration being a Port shipper’s announcement that they will make a Vintage Port from any year – is twofold; one the shippers – Port firms such as Taylor’s, Dows, Warres, etc. – have a reputation to protect and will only declare a Vintage if the Ports are of a truly exceptional standard. They also need to be careful of how much Vintage Port is on the market at any one time, there is still a fine balance to be struck between supply and demand.
