Anyone who has had the privilege of tasting Vintage Port from the 1960s or earlier will agree that these are some of the best wines they have ever tasted. It speaks volumes, therefore, that the 1994 Vintage Ports have all the ingredients to follow in the footsteps of those great years.
Exactly three decades ago, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, George W Bush Jr became governor of Texas, the last Russian troops left Germany, and the Hubble Space Telescope revealed the first detailed photographs of Pluto and its moon Charon. In the same year, the Douro Valley produced grapes for one of the most amazing Port vintages since 1970. Up to that later time, many questionable decisions had been made in Port production. Several brands were bought by large international groups with little or no experience in the premium wine sector, wrong declaration decisions were made, and largely inconsistent quality even from famous houses in the 1980s led to a rather low reputation for Vintage Port by the early 1990s. On top of all of this, the replacement of vinhas velhas (very old mixed vines) with varietal plantings sadly contributed to a decline in quality.
Following the worst in 50 years…
The harvest in 1993 was a disaster—huge amounts of rain in the Douro Valley just before and during harvest meant that only one Vintage Port was officially bottled that year. The following winter of 1993/94 began mildly, with lots of rain in relatively short periods of time to replenish
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
