Vintage Port Revisited and Burgundy 2021 at First Blush: Weekly Tasting Report (Jan 11-17)

Aside from a special bottling of magnum-only 2016 Brunello di Montalcino from Castiglion del Bosco to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit and a few great 2020 Bordeaux such as Bellefont-Belcier (see the Zoom interview, below), Figeac and Pape-Clement, this weekly report includes almost 200 wine ratings from Portugal and more than 50 Ports.

You may not remember but I wrote a book on Port in 1989 called “Vintage Port.”  That’s a long time ago. And it was the only wine book I have written so far. My love and fascination of vintage Port remains today, and it was a wonderful experience to taste all those Ports with my colleague, Associate Editor Andri Stetsiuk. We spent a lot of time discussing tasting young vintage Ports and how I learned about it in the mid-1980s while tasting with some of the masters, such as the late Bruce Guimaraens.

To this day, the key to tasting a young vintage Port is to evaluate the tannin structure at the end of the palate on each fortified wine. It’s not about the sweetness or richness of fruit. It’s the structure that will take a great vintage Port through its lifetime. We tasted a number of 2018 and 2019 vintage Ports and I found the 2019s slightly better with more depth of fruit and structure than the 2018s. This stands to reason because more Port houses “declared” 2019 – or judged it to be exceptional – and it’s considered a better vintage.

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One of the fun moments was when I found some 2003 vintage Ports in our cellar in Hong Kong and we tasted them. Just about 20 years on, the Fonseca 2003 and Taylor's 2003  were still very much how I remembered tasting them when they were first released in 2006. Yet the tannins had resolved and the sweetness integrated. It was the same today as before.

The Fonseca is a fantastic bottle with opulence and structure yet balanced now. The 2003 Taylor's is extremely refined – almost a little too refined considering its lofty reputation, but an outstanding bottle.

We also tasted a number of Late-Bottled Vintage Port (LBV) as well as aged tawnies. The traditional LBVs, which means they were not filtered before bottling, were some excellent fortified wines, particularly for the money. They are bottled after aging four years in cask or stainless steel compared with two years for a vintage Port. The best can compete with outstanding vintage Port.

The aged tawnies were up to 50 years old. I love these old tawnies, and my favorite age continues to be 20 years old, which has a nice balance of age with fruit. The caramel, toffee, and brown sugar aromas and flavors are nicely interspersed with the subtle red fruits in the center palate. Check out the aged tawnies in this report from the wine estate of Quinta do Vallado. There’s also a rare, 400-bottle producer-aged tawny from Quinta do Crasto, which is from a stash of fortified wine from the 1910s.

Also in our Hong Kong office, Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt, with Andrii, tasted a range of Champagnes from Moet & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. Alongside some of the latest vintage wines of both houses, of particular note was the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne Extra Brut Extra Old N2 NV. This is the second edition of their Extra Old series, all made uniquely from reserve wines. N2 includes wines ranging from 2012 all the way back to 1990.It was showing a deliciously toasty and nutty complexity, with soft bubbles and a creamy, layered palate; and at only 3g/L dosage, it's one of their driest cuvees.
 
Another one to look out for is the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne La Grande Dame Brut Rosé 2006. It's one of the last of the "old style" La Grand Dame, before a significant winemaking change since 2008 toward around 90 percent pinot noir in their prestige cuvee (both Brut and Brut Rosé), and a reduction in dosage. La Grande Dame Brut Rosé 2006 is almost equal parts grand cru pinot noir and chardonnay, with 15 percent pinot noir red wine from their walled vineyard Clos Colin in Bouzy. It is rich, rounded and honeyed. There is plenty more to check out below like Moet & Chandon's contrasting vintage wines from 2013 (a cool year where chardonnay shone) and 2015 (a hot and dry vintage where red grapes fared better).

FIRST TASTE OF BURGUNDY 2021 

We also had our first encounter with the 2021 vintage red and white Burgundies this week. The vintage is small in volume due to spring frost damage (worse for the whites than the reds, because chardonnay buds out earlier than pinot noir) and its quality is disputed. Senior Editor Stuart Pigott saw the largest range at a tasting in London organized by Burgundy specialists Haynes, Hanson & Clark, where he tasted 40 wines from a wide range of appellations.

“We remain skeptical about tasting Burgundy as cask samples, so I focused on bottled wines," Stuart explained. “They really tell you what’s going on, rather than what might be there."

Anthony Hanson, one of the founders of Haynes, Hanson & Clark, described 2021 in Burgundy as “a classic-style vintage like the good years of the 1980s and 1990s, without the opulence of the previous three vintages.”

After tasting, Stuart concurred with this characterization, adding that “you need to hunt to find jewels like the Domaine Henri Magnien Corton Grand Cru Les Grandes Lolieres 2021,” which he praised for its intense stony minerality.

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“2021 was not a vintage to learn,” Domaine Henri Magnien winery director Charles Magnien told Stuart. “It was a vintage for action. We are lucky to have old vines and a new winery!"

As in the previous vintages we found the best value is in the top wines from less exalted appellations. Read the notes below to find our recommendations.

The other top Burgundy we tasted was not a 2021 but fell into this category. The Jules Desjourneys Pouilly-Fuissé Vines Blanches 2018 is not even a premier cru. James compared it to a very good Puligny-Montrachet. It shows there are still some excellent Burgundies in the market for moderate prices.

The team will taste the 2021 vintage Burgundies intensively in late June, when they are all in bottle.

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman, and Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor