1975 Vintage Port
A light Vintage, but the best are elegant and a pleasure to drink. General declaration.
Drinking Status
Fully mature. Well cellared, the best wines will last for some years.
Tasting Notes
Light and fruity wines. The good '75's will grow old gracefully and are in good shape. They are elegant and well balanced but not big.
Climatic Conditions
January and February were both dry, with some light rain. March, on the other hand, was rainy with a little sunshine. Then April was fine, as was May, which had only a little rain. This was followed by a hot, fine summer.
Vinification
The vintage began at the end of September. October was wet and stormy during the first week but was followed by three weeks of unbroken, fine, hot sunshine.
Winemaker's Comments
"The weeks leading up to the 1975 Vintage were dominated by the continuous political crisis in Lisbon, the recession in Port exports and farmers' fears that they would be unable to find production facilities or storage space for their wines, for most of their 1974 "consumo" was still lying in the Douro unsold...these last 10 years or 15... farmers have run down their own production facilities and sold off their vats, so that in the general uncertain atmosphere, near-panic swept the Douro as many found they would be left with nobody to make their wines."
"In the event...here at Bomfim we announced we would make "for their own account" the wines of all farmers who found themselves in difficulties, with priority to those from whom we had bought in 1974....This offer of ours was very well received locally and many hundreds of pipes of grapes were handed in."
"Musts everywhere showed excellent colour, body and flavour...fermentations were at an excellent 23-26 degrees. The quality of the grapes coming in was uniformly high and the continuous hot weather increased the graduations...some outstanding and maybe even "Vintage-worthy" red ports have been produced."
Michael D Symington
28 October 1975