Port (and related matters) 3 August 2007

A letter from Calitzdorp
 

The debate string that was originally to do with port got rather long and diverged from the original subject; hence we start afresh here.

From Carel Nel (of Boplaas Family Vineyards):

It is with great interest that I’ve followed the recent debates about Port and Shiraz in Grape.

As a Port producer and SAPPA [South African Port Producers' Association] member I would like to make a few comments.

Wine writers and Port producers from all over the world often say that South African Port may be the best Port in the New World.  I recently visited the US and Australia and I did not find anything that can rival our finest Ports.  In the Platter  - out of the thousands of wines tasted – Port will always have 1 to 3, 5 star ratings out of the less than 20 awarded.  The same happens at Veritas and the Trophy Wine Show – where Ports consistently out-score many other wines.  So I think that SAPPA and the Port producers of South Africa must be doing something right.

To say that Ports from Portugal are the best is a highly debatable topic.  There is a lot of rubbish coming out of the Duoro, like some of the examples from the recent WINE tasting.  Dave Hughes slipped a few South African Ports into a Portuguese Port tasting and not only did the wine writers not pick out the South African Ports, but actually awarded them gold medals.

To attack Tony Mossop, now that he is unable to defend himself is extremely ungentlemanly.  Tony was a true gentleman and somebody that loved Port, and as SAPPA’s chairman and wine writer did a lot for Port and South African wine in general.  To say that his Ports get 2 ½ stars now that he is not the judge – is utter nonsense.  2005 was a difficult year due to a thundershower that occurred in the middle of harvest, and the entire quality of the 2005 Port depended on when you harvested. Unfortunately Axehill harvested after the thundershower.  The Axehill Ports of previous years were superlative Ports.

We often get prices 4 times higher for Port than Muscadels at auctions.  With input from SAPPA, we helped the government to negotiate the right to use the names Cape Ruby, Cape Tawny, Cape Vintage in the E.U. This is the first giant leap in the right direction.

It is a pity that the Widow does not sign his/her articles, as I am sure that a world-class winemaker like Adi Badenhorst would like to contact the person to discuss a remark like “As I myself tend to find Adi’s own magnificent Peter Barlow Cab undrinkable unless diluted half-and half with water, I do have some sympathy with him – and I hope he finds some lessons in the more old-fashioned of the clarets he imbibes”.

Coming back to judging and scores – the Port category can boast a remarkable consistency of prize winning in all forms of competition.  For instance the De Krans 1997 Reserve Port did well at Veritas with a double gold (winemaker on the panel), Trophy Wine Show (winemaker not on the panel), Platter 5 star (wine-maker not on the panel); the same can be said for the De Krans 2002 Reserve Port.

The Bredell’s 1998 Port received similar accolades from the Trophy Wine Show, Veritas and Wine-make’s choice awards. The Bredell’s 2000 Vintage Port – Diamond Award for the Wine-maker’s Choice awards (wine makers on the panel), WINE 4 stars (wine-maker not on the panel), Veritas gold, trophy at the Trophy Wine Show and SA Champion Port at the 2000 SANYWS (SA National Young-wine Show). This might become a very long list!

Wine-makers judge in competitions in SA, Australia, the US, France and all over the world. Wine-writers (and others) over-estimate the influence of the wine-makers on panels.  If you have 5 panel members and one of the judges gives a higher score for instance their scores read: 18, 15, 15, 15 and 13.  Both the scores of 18 and 13 are rejected and the median or mode of 15 will be the eventual score. Both Veritas and WINE have 7 and 5 member panels respectively.

Coming back to the 2007 WINE Port tasting – the 1980 Boplaas Tawny Port (4 stars from WINE) got a Platter 5 star rating (no producer tasting); Port of the Year 2007 from SAA (no producer tasting) and Veritas double gold in 2006.  The Boplaas Cape Tawny Port N/V (4 stars WINE) won the Trophy at the 2006 Trophy Wine Show – once again no producer on the panel.  The same happened for the Boplaas Vintage Reserve 2004 – Platter 5 star, Trophy at the Trophy Wine Show and noted as “Frightfully good” by Paul Symington on a recent visit.  In 2000 at the Diner’s Club awards with 6 producers on the panel the convenors decided to exclude the producers scores of their own wines. Afterwards they did a further calculation with the wine-makers scores of their own wines included – the results were conclusive: with or without the wine-makers personal wine scores the winners remained the same.

SAPPA at its AGM in July decided to recommend to all tasting panels where their producers are on the panels, that their scores be excluded when it comes to their own wines.  Several competitions already looked at the influence of producer’s scores on the eventual results and found that there was no influence – as per the Diner’s Club experiment mentioned above.

If wine-makers and CWMs (involved with wine Estates) are excluded from panels we must just make sure that we have enough professionals on the panel to judge 50 -70 Ports at a go!  The higher alcohols and tannins in the Port’s make it rather difficult towards the end.  We must also find professionals that know both Portuguese and SA Ports, have made Port and that have travelled to Portugal often to be aware of the new international trends, so that we can keep SA Port the best Port in the New World (and perhaps the world).

Interestingly enough we recently held a SAPPA workshop in Stellenbosch and of the 48 participants that wrote the Port tasting exam at the end of the workshop; 40 passed. 35 of those who passed were involved with wine Estates or wine companies and thus there scores should be excluded in judging (?)

To the Widow (I don’t know whether it’s a he or a she), I cordially invite you to Boplaas to share a glass or two of wine or aged Port with me. We still have a few bottles of wine left, in spite of what a good friend and gentleman Tony Mossop once said, “The only thing in Calitzdorp smaller than an ostrich’s brain is the Nel Family’s private cellar!”

Finally, I would like to implore wine-writers to write positively about wine as it is always easier to be negative about a subject than it is to be positive. I would also like to thank Fiona and her team at Wine as well as Cassie and his team at the Winelands and Fynproe; for their outstanding work in promoting wine in a whole. And as an afterthought – wine must be fun.

A brief note from the Widow:
Adi Badenhorst, a man with a great sense of humour as well as being a fine winemaker, responded quite happily all by himself to the rude remark about his Peter Barlow, and took it in the spirit in which it was offered. And while I would always love to come and share a glass with Carel, I hope he realises that I need no convincing about the joys of port - one of my problems with the Wine tasting, of course, is that it trivialised the fine local ports by suggesting they should be drunk within eight years or so. And of course Carel also realises that Grape has done more than its fair share in promoting and exulting over Cape port. I even remember two articles by Tony Mossop in the good old days of print.