Vintage Port Years: A Guide to Declared Vintages

Understanding vintage port years is essential for collectors. Port houses craft these wines for extensive bottle aging. They represent the pinnacle of a house's production in exceptional harvests. Unlike other producers, Port houses do not declare a vintage every year. Instead they select only the best years to produce these highly concentrated, long-lived wines. Each individual Port house makes that decision early in the second year following the harvest. Recent widely declared vintage years include 2017, 2016, 2011, 2007, 2003, 2000, 1997, and 1994. These wines are designed to gain complexity for many decades in the bottle. That makes the choice of vintage crucial for long-term cellaring and enjoyment.

What defines a vintage port year?

Individual Port houses define a vintage port year by choosing to declare a vintage. That declaration signifies that the wine from that specific harvest is of exceptional quality. In winemaking, "vintage" generally refers to wine made from grapes primarily grown and harvested in a single specified year. For Port wine, however, the term carries a distinct meaning. Port houses make and declare vintage Port only in their best years. Not every year is declared a vintage in the Douro region.

Each individual Port house, often referred to as a "shipper," makes the decision to declare a vintage. That call comes early in the second year following the harvest. In very good years, almost all Port houses will declare their wines. In intermediate years, however, producers of blended vintage ports might not declare their flagship wine. They may instead declare the vintage of a single quinta, or estate. Examples include Dow's Quinta do Bomfim 1996 and Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas 1996. Some houses, like Quinta do Vesuvio, declare a vintage in all but the worst years. The exceptions there are 1993, 2002, and 2014. Improved winemaking technologies and better weather forecasts during harvest have increased the number of years in which houses can declare a vintage.

Some years have seen only one or two declarations. Even so, it has been over 30 years since there was a year with no declarations at all. Bordeaux producers work differently. They typically release a year-labelled top wine almost every year. In some years they also produce lesser quality "second wines".

How do vintage port years differ from other port styles?

Vintage Port stands apart from other Port styles. Its specific production methods and aging trajectory aim at long-term bottle maturation. Vintage Ports are "high craftsmanship Ruby Ports," made from the finest selection of grapes.

Here is a comparison of key Port styles:

Port Style	Aging in Wood/Tank Before Bottling
Vintage Port	A maximum of two and a half years in barrel or stainless steel
Late Bottled Vintage	Bottled four to six years after the vintage
Ruby Port	Held in concrete or stainless steel tanks; premium rubies spend four to six years in wood
Tawny with an indication of age	A blend of several vintages, with a target of 10, 20, 30 or 40 years in wood
Colheita	At least seven years, and sometimes 20 or more, from a single harvest

Those numbers set the drinking window. A vintage port spends only about 18 months in barrel after the harvest and then matures in glass, while a Colheita may sit 20 or more years in wood before bottling. Vintage port is also scarce. It accounts for only about two percent of overall port production.

How much should a vintage chart decide for you?

Treat a chart as a shortlist rather than a verdict. The importance assigned to vintage is both varied and disputed, and the trade itself has argued the point in public. New York Times wine columnist Frank J. Prial declared the vintage chart to be dead, writing that "winemakers of the world have rendered the vintage chart obsolete". Bill Marsano wrote that "winemakers now have the technology and skills to make good and even very good wines in undistinguished years". James Laube of Wine Spectator has asserted that "even an average vintage can yield some grand wines".

Roman Weil, co-chairman of the Oenonomy Society of the US and professor at the University of Chicago, put the question to a test. He poured wines ranging from four to 17 years beyond their vintage for 240 wine drinkers. The tasters could not tell wines of good and bad vintages apart, except for Bordeaux wines. Even when they could make a distinction, the match between their assessments and the charts' rankings was little better than tossing a coin. Wine experts, including French wine academics, scored no better than chance when the tests were repeated with them.

Weil does not consider a vintage chart useless. He suggests using one to help "find good buys in wine", because a wine from a year rated below average may be priced far below its actual quality. For a Port buyer that reframes what a declaration is worth. The declared years tell you which bottles a house built to last, and the undeclared ones are where the value often hides.