Fornemt besøg fra Portugal

Hurra!

Det lykkedes at få en af de af de helt store vinmager til Danmark. Og alt sammen takket være "vores" portvinsklub. 

Med fly fra Portugal til Kastrup, derefter toget til Odense Banegård, blev herfra kørt i bil til Sortebro Kro, hvor han ankom lidt over kl. 16.

Ca. ½ time til at forberede sig, og så ellers i gang med en fantastisk smagning for 32 forventningsfulde medlemmer af Den Fynske Portvinsklub.

Vi fik alt hvad vi kunne forvente. David Guimaraens må være en af de mest autentiske eksperter man kan opdrive, når det gælder vinhuset Fonseca. Siden 1994, har han stået for Fonsecas, og iøvrigt også Taylors, vintage port. Oplært til jobbet dels af hans far Bruce Guimaraens, dels af den australske Roseworthy College vinskole.

Der ventede os en perlerække af klassiske vintage årgange. 1934, 1955, 1963, 1966, 1970. 1977, 1980, 1985, 1992, 1994, 1997 og 2000.

David, der hostende kæmpede med efterfølgerne fra en forkølelse, fik fortalt om de notater hans familie havde gjort sig, angående de forskellige årganges klima og høst. Frank, Dorothy, Bruce og David Guimaraens vine var repræsenteret i smagningen. Der var ingen endelig konklusion på hvilke klimaparameter, som vil give en stor vintage årgang, men vinen skal "stresses", enten med kulde, som i årgangene 1934, 1963 og 1977, eller med tørke og varme, som årgang 1955, 1966, 1970.

Fyens Stifttidende havde et kort besøg på smagningen. Her er et link til deres beretning fra smagningen.

De 2 timer fløj af sted. Der var ingen tvivl om at David kunne fortælle meget, meget mere. Og heldigvis var der en masse gode løfter om et snarligt gensyn. 

Vi glæder os allerede.

David skrev efter sin hjemkost til Portual følgende flotte brev til klubben:

I would very much like to pass on to you and the rest of the Board of The Vintage Port Club my sincere thank you for the invitation to your tasting in Odense.

Tastings as complete as last Thursday's do not occur very often, and for me it was a great pleasure to taste all the Vintage Ports together from 4 generations, and to share with you what I know and feal about each. To experience such a wonderfull group of people at the tasting, who are there to enjoy Vintage Port, gives me the drive to get out and ensure we continue to make our Fonseca Ports to the standard that our followers expect.

In the tasting we covered many decades, through which time our trade has faced many challenges. As you know, my passion is Vintage Port, and everyhing I do with a wonderfull group of people I work with, revolves around this incredible and unique wine of the world. It saddens me to see the rest of the trade and region turning more and more attention to Douro table wine, where it is in Port that we haven something truly unique and fantastic. Again it is clubs like yours that sometimes understand this more than many people in our own country.

I count on your support to keep driving this message!

Tommorow morning I am in the Douro to distribute the grape varities in 2 vineyards we have replanted at Quinta da Roeda and Terra Feita. The use of several grape varieties and their carefull distribuiton at planting are fundamental to guarantee our future Vintage Ports. This work is something that Antonio Magalhães, our Viticulturist, and I have done together now for twenty years, and we can happily say that not one vine has been planted over this period in our vineyards without the two of us together deciding the combination of grape varieties, and their distribution in the land. A great job!

May I suggest at a future date a tasting of 5 of our single quinta Vintage Ports from 2008, as well as tasting a selection of a number of single quintas back over a few years. This tasting would be to discover the characteristic of different terroirs in the Douro, and what is behind a house style. Maybe we could do this sometime next year?

Once again, thank you very much for the invitation,

Best regards,

David Fonseca Guimaraens