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Yes, I don’t bother keeping notes, but I recall enoying it. And one of my wine goals this year included buying more Portuguese wines, so happy to put in for this.
Haha! Yes, that’s pretty clear. I stand corrected.
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Wasn’t 2021 a really poor vintage in the Douro? Nothing mentioned about vintage conditions in the write up.
I’m sure it’s a lovely wine but it’s odd how when the vintage is poor, there is no mention of it but when it’s a good one there is always something like ‘x vineyards thrived in the perfect vintage conditions’ etc
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Seems to have been cooler with some heavy storms in summer - a few instances of hail and landslips around and rain in the harvest period for reds. Seen “challenging” in a couple of vintage reports. Those trying to sell the wine seem to have focussed on the ‘freshness and elegance’ of the resulting wines. Pretty thorough report here, although I know nothing about the source.
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I know little about Douro vintages, but 2021 was poor/difficult/challenging (delete as per preference) in a number of European wine producing areas (In France alone, Bordeaux, Loire and Burgundy spring to mind), so it wouldn’t be a surprise.
While I agree with your sentiment, the reality is that in an age of positive marketing, no producer or retailer is going to acknowledge a lower quality product openly (would your employer?), even if a “poor” vintage were something that could be defined clearly.
Although this isn’t an exact parallel, UK retailers in particular are generally conscious that nobody ever wants to have another “Ratner moment” about their products. Since wine vintages have to be sold each year, good or bad, producers and retailers will give the most positive spin, which sometimes means omission. Silence on a topic can be telling, but requires enough knowledge on the part of the consumer to interpret it.
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I’m sure most will have seen it already but noticed today that a lot of new dates for EP/FR have been added to the list.
October seems to have the most new additions with a few German offerings, the previously deleted Madiran EP and Boekenhoutskloof FR all in the fray:
2020 Boekenhoutskloof FR
2022 Maximim Grünhaus/Bürklin-Wolf FR
2021 Mortet FR
2022 Madiran EP
2021 Cross Regional EP
2022 Zilliken/Dönnhoff FR
2019 Vergelegen FR
2023 Xanadu EP
2022 Joh Jos Prüm/Künstler FR
November has added the 2019 Brunellos which I will definitely try to scrape some pennies together for and then December has been included with Alheit, Yalumba and Jose Madrazo No.IV added into the mix.
There goes my pre-Christmas savings plan I guess…
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Any further info on what this entails?
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No I haven’t seen anything… perhaps someone from the society could elucidate?
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My guess is it will be the recent releases from La Place de Bordeaux.
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I was reading the Tom Parker for Jancis review of them. It was scathing of both the concept and most of the wines.
The newly renamed “Domaine La Chapelle” scored 15.
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Please could you inform the ignorant amongst us as to what this is? Asking for a friend, naturally 
There are an increasing number of a certain class of “fine wine” that is being released via the Bordeaux Place de la Bourse En Primeur system. It’s mostly big reds from South America and California and Super Tuscans, but there’s a few other French wines too (e.g. e.g. the “Domaine La Chapelle”/PJA Hermitage La Chapelle and CndP Homage a Jaques Perrin).
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Has anyone made mention of what the motivation for this is? (or is it just another arm of multi-national businesses moving their stock through a well established route?).
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$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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https://community.thewinesociety.com/t/lra-874-2020-ep/14329?u=wine.arbitrageur
Created a thread as saw there was some disparate conversations.
Private page?
Means you have to join the EP group. I forget how but worth it.
Bizarre the usability aspect of that but 
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