Gould Campbell 1994: no bloody good.

WINE TALK
1

I admit I have been lucky, and generally, thanks to Port being so cheap, I can afford to be picky. I bought this at auction with Graham 1994, gave most of them as Christmas gifts, and now, I am afraid, must admit I did a bad, bad, thing. The one remaining bottle was standing for a couple of weeks, and yesterday as we watched a great black and white movie (the Razor’s Edge) I poured my first glass.

Nothing excited me; nothing wrong with the bottle. A small, dilute figgy nose, little complexity, no acid, hence no grip and a feeble finish. Commercially acceptable, but barely drinkable. 82 points

2

Wow. I thought Gould Campbell was one of the better Port houses. This kind of worries me seeing as how I have a 1980 and a 1983 bottle in my own collection.

3

Mark, must say surprised to hear this, definitely would have expected way more. Bummer, but this has not been my experience with either the 83 or the 80. The 85 has been excellent too.

4

Thanks Rico, that’s good to know. I will keep my hopes up.

5

Please post when you do drink them.

6

I just finished a bottle of the 1997. It wasn’t very good either. Very spirited. It had little of a wine element at all and basically drank like Southern Comfort. I like port, but at 15 years it should have shown a little something and I didn’t detect any upside with more time. From pretty good vintage, it should have been much better.

When they are declaring vintages and I am paying a premium for VP, I am expecting at least an outstanding drinking experience. Ports are special occasion wines for me and this one did not live up to it.

7

I just bought Fonseca 1997 at around $35, and Fonseca 1985 at $50 all in at auction. At that kind of pricing, one can afford to be very picky. I am not sure where that leaves QH, but it will certainly be the last bottle I buy.

8

Sorry to hear about this one. We had a really good bottle of the 77 last week, a joy to drink.

9

Sorry to hear about the bad bottle. 94GC is developing a reputation for high variability, which is a pity, because when the bottle is ‘on,’ it is a real treat (though still incredibly young). I find this phenomenon is basically exclusive to port – where certain bottles (83 Cockburn, 77 Grahams, among quite a few others) suffer from very high levels of VA/TCA/etc. After the revolution, and before vintage port became commercially successful, some sloppiness seemed commonplace (and many in the trade admit as much – the 80s were not a kind decade to the likes of Noval, Taylor, etc). I find that since the '94 vintage, such incidences have fallen dramatically and there has been quite a surge in quality.

Gould is among my favorite producers of VP (the 70, 77, and 80 in particular spring to mind), so feel free to stop buying their wines at auction! :slight_smile:

10

OK, a major sacrifice, but what the hell! For a fellow member, anything. [berserker.gif]

11

I came to WB to see what people were saying about this specific bottling, as I’ve had it three times in the past year, along with a few Gould 1977’s, 1980, 1983 and 1985 too and just one bottle from 1966/1970 … all in 2012 … many before.

I realize this thread is fairly old at this point and that’s all well and good, but I’d like to add my two cents.

The Gould Campbell’s between 1977 and 2003 … in all the major years (I’ve only had one or two ever from '97 so will leave that out of my generalization to follow) are all extremely concentrated, ultra-dark and extracted and when stored properly, develop at a glacial pace (similarly to Quilceda Creek) seeming don’t evolve … and none going back to 1977 even shows more than a smattering of secondary characteristics. The key to drinking any of them now, is to ensure you decant them for a long time and by that … all of the aforementioned vintages post-1970 require a full on 8 hours in open decanter, none of this Audozing stuff. Even then, while there will be virtually no more spirity heat character left and the brash fruit and primacy will still be present, the Gould Campbell Ports gain a really seductive smoothness texturally, get even darker and put on body weight.

The 1994 is just coming out of its dumb phase this year. It was shut down and a bit muted in recent years, but has now emerged and shows very nicely. I’ve had it twice in the past 3 months. It is a major fruit bomb though and lacks evolution or mid-palate complexity, yet has all the stuffing to drink well in the future and by that I would bet the farm on 2-3 decades! However, Gould Campbell is not well understood and people decant it for just two to four hours and are disappoionted. Yep, that will certainly be the case, especially with just 2 hours open. Try a much longer decant and see what you think. [cheers.gif]

I am still wondering if Mark G. meant GC, as I know he understands VP very well. His second posting in this thread mentions Quarles Harris '94 and I am left wondering if that is what he possibly meant from the get go. 82 points is just ridiculous for a well stored bottle of the 1994 GC, but either it was an imperfect bottle or something was wrong. I’ve read lots of TN’s from FTLOP and some on CT and the “pros” too and this typically averages 91 points from the average of all sources and some that I trust as serious VP drinkers, regularly score it 92-94.

12

Definitely the Gould Campbell, as I have tasted one of the bottles since then, and still found a total lack of grip and that same low acidity.
Perhaps bad shipment/storage, as the description could also be heat damage. I think it is time to uncork the Graham from the same auction lot and report. Will open for Superbowl Sunday

13

But Mark - if you have Fonseca that you can open . . . [shrug.gif]

14

I opened a bottle of 1994 Warre’s Christamas Eve. Still a baby, lots of black fruits very vibrant, still have a bit left in the fridge. I’ve always felt Gould has been good but never great, maybe a 3rd tier house. However I don’t drink a fraction of the Port Roy drinks, and I haven’t had a Gould Campbell in a while. Would it make sense to lean towards bottle damage? Roy and Mark seem to have quite opposite views of the wine, and I don’t doubt either regarding their impressions under separate sets of conditions.

15

Brent - I don’t have the same background w Port either, but from my limited experience, I’m with you completely about Gould.

Anyhow, now that it’s cold, let’s have cassoulet and Port and we’ll have the definitive answer for the waiting masses.

16

While I’ve not had nor do I own the 94 GC, I’m chiming in to agree with Roy relative to GC in general. I’ve always found GC to be an excellent wine in the major years and usually developing at a pace similar to Fonseca, Taylor or Graham and slower than Dow (excluding 1980) or Warre. I don’t usually open a port with less than 20 years of bottle age on it as the major houses in major years just need this kind of time to start coming around. At a little more than 18 years after the vintage and 16 years of bottle age, any of the major 94s are still too young to be showing much of anything, IMHO.

17

I have had the '83 twice and it is exceptional. Nothing like Mark’s description of the 1994.

18

I can attest to the beneficial effect of a long decant on 15-20 year old (or even older) VP’s. Most recent example: a 1992 Smith Woodhouse. Hot and spirit-ey with little fruit when popped, but smoothed out and gained weight when poured back into the bottle after 7 hours in a wide-bottom decanter. Lovely juice.

19

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or not, but when I was developing my palate for port about 10+ years ago, many of the 80’s vintages were readily available in the market, so I drank a good bit of '80, '83, '85 VP’s from both fine and middling houses. These wines were either not yet or only just reaching 20 years of age. Many would say this is absolute minimum for drinking VP’s and still not expecting anything like tertiary elements. But what I found at the time was that most of these wines were quite drinkable and, while obvious they would age much much longer, they drank rather well at that young stage.

Fast forward 10 years and I have done the same thing with many VP’s from the 90’s vintages and I am not coming away with the same impression at all. In general the wines are harder, tighter, less approachable, and in need of further cellaring. Long decanting helps but only in a moderate way. So what I am seeing is that the VP’s from the 90’s are different than those from the 80’s. They are more compact, concentrated, and seemingly built for longer aging then their older siblings.

Again, I don’t know if others have noticed this generality, but I have given up on opening VP’s less than 25 years old, and will easily push that to 30 for some of the less yielding examples I have tasted. And I’ll add that this holds true for the house brand VP’s and also the single quinta bottlings. Vargellas is a classic example. So is Bomfim.

Craig

20

Roy,

Would you recommend an 8 hour decant on the 1980? I’m sitting on a few bottles and plan to open one soon.