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Novelties in port
LATE October in the Douro: mist rises from the water and covers it in an eider- down of cloud reaching halfway up the steep sides of the valley, until the sun, shining right into your eyes as you take the morning train from Oporto, dispels it and turns the river to its eponymous element gold. In Spain, where it rises, the river might be called El Dorado: the upper reaches of the valley certainly feel more like Peru than Portugal; this must be the most wildly remote of western European wine regions.
The vintage ended more than a month ago. Things in the Quintas (wine farms) are quiet; the lagars, stone troughs where some of the grapes are still trodden, are empty, but stained and smelling pungently of fermenting fruit. At Quinta do Noval, the grape pips are being dried and raked. They will be fed to the two or three farm pigs, which will be slaughtered in January, to provide occasion for a winter party when the non-preservable parts will be eaten, and hams, cured in the lagars with essence of port, for the lean months. This is a Perfect, self-contained estate, producing vegetables, olive oil, plump almonds and scented honey, all of which taste excep- tionally good and seem to share some of the qualities of the wine which has made the estate famous.
Thirty miles upstream, overlooking a dramatic bend in the river, is Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas. The wine from this estate forms the basis of Taylor's vintage ports: appropriately, in a tougher land- scape, these are more masculine wines, famous for their backbone. Four kilometres from the tarmacked road, Vargellas is an intensely peaceful place. Except for the train, which passes four times a day, only birds break the silence. But the impression of inactivity is decep- tive. Many new vineyards are being cre- ated in this far corner of the Douro, where, some consider, the best sites are located. Taylor's are also devoting time and trouble to a careful study of grape varieties. Down at their Terrafeita property opposite Nov- al, we tasted five young varietal ports of the '86 vintage which had been vinified separately for experimental purposes. The Touriga Nacional was impressive, as ex- pected, but equally good, I thought, was the Tinta Roriz (the Tempranillo of Rmla), full of fruit and Graves-like in texture. In fact, 1986 is not considered a great vintage. Rain in September diluted what might have been an exceptional harvest. The quality is more than accept- able, but almost certainly not as good as 1985, which looks set to sbe declared a vintage year.
That decision will not be taken until January or February, when the new vin- tage has settled down, before it is trans- ported down the river (but no longer by boat) to the shippers' lodges in Vila Nova da Gaia, the port suburb of Oporto on the south bank of the Douro. The lodges (warehouses for blending and maturation) with their whitewashed walls, rounded arches and exposed beams seem un- changed since the 17th century; some Dutch artist of that period should have painted them. But once again the antique impression is not the whole truth. The lodge I visited is leased to a firm which has only been going five years, run by a man who started it up in his twenties.
Behind the somewhat vague Etonian charm, Johnny Graham is an extremely dedicated, shrewd and talented port ship- per. His first requirement, a guaranteed supply of high quality wine, is assured by a long-term arrangement with three very fine Quintas, MAnuela, Agua Alta and Fojo. Churchill Graham's first vintage, 1982, is one of the best wines of the year, stylish and packed with fruit, though without the severity one might expect from such a young wine.
At the other end of the scale, Churchill's Vintage Character is that very rare bird, a vintage character port which really does have the character of true vintage. It has that well-structured firmness of fruit which makes vintage port special, but which one hardly expects to find in Late Bottled Vintage, let alone Vintage Character. Part of the reason is simple: Johnny Graham is not prepared to sacrifice quality to quanti- ty; he has limited his channels of distribu- tion to specialist merchants, and refused to succumb to the advances of the big chains. Long may he continue to do so, and thus enhance the reputation of one of the world's oddest but greatest wines.
Ausonius
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