Vintages in Puerh

[sp1key]

there isnt such rating on vintages... puerh depends more on the manufacturer/blending recipe of individual cakes

[TIM]

At least with wine, it's fairly easy to master the desirable vintages. For example, Bordeaux:
1980 horrible
1981 good
1982 phenomenal
1983 excellent
1984 terrible
1985 excellent
1986 great
1987 fair
1988 very good
1989 excellent
1990 phenomenal
and so on.

With pu'er, I haven't come across enough information regarding the most desirable harvests by area, and production quality by factory, but I plan on finding out.

Thanks Tony and I agreed with you. That's what I had in mind when I mention these years to a Sommeliers.

Thru the years of drinking tea, and talking to tea farmers/master. The first questions usually are: "How's the Harvest this year?". In 2001, the answer was:"The best weather since 1997, the tea will had all the characters to be a top grade or winning a competition."

Some recent vintage for oolong and puerh imo:
1997 phenomenal
2001 phenomenal
2004 great
2005 soso (too much rain and cold)

[hop_goblin]

I still think saying something is "vintage 2008" is different from saying it's "vintage". To me, at least, "vintage 2008" (esp. when 2008 is a very recent year) is simply a slightly pretentious way of saying when the tea was made.

Agreed, to the extent that I wouldn't refer to my 2009 Toyota as a "vintage" car.

At least with wine, it's fairly easy to master the desirable vintages. For example, Bordeaux:
1980 horrible
1981 good
1982 phenomenal
1983 excellent
1984 terrible
1985 excellent
1986 great
1987 fair
1988 very good
1989 excellent
1990 phenomenal
and so on.

With pu'er, I haven't come across enough information regarding the most desirable harvests by area, and production quality by factory, but I plan on finding out.

Vin = vine tage = age

Age of the Vine

Tony, I think you have it right. The reason that French wines have vintages is due to the fact that Europe's weather is inconsistent. Some years will be to cold, some will be to wet and so forth. Be as it may, the weather affects the grapes. This is why California wines have an advantage - weather is much more consistent.

In terms of pu, I am not sure if different years produce different leaves. I know that some weather factors will disrupt or alter particular output but as for changing the leaf itself?

Since tea nor puerh come from vines, I think it is fair to suggest that the term is just used loosly to designate a year. Vintage toyota!

[vibrantdragon]

Thanks Tony and I agreed with you. That's what I had in mind when I mention these years to a Sommeliers.

Thru the years of drinking tea, and talking to tea farmers/master. The first questions usually are: "How's the Harvest this year?". In 2001, the answer was:"The best weather since 1997, the tea will had all the characters to be a top grade or winning a competition."

Some recent vintage for oolong and puerh imo:
1997 phenomenal
2001 phenomenal
2004 great
2005 soso (too much rain and cold)

Adding what I know, is that (This is not from taste testing which is the main test, but these are too new to have good data yet on that.)
2008 not so good, the leaves were damaged early in the season.
2009 So far a very good year the leaves look great.

[Herb_Master]

I feel compelled to add a few comments about wine. It is difficult to know where to start and where to stop.

Unlike most tea bushes vines can only be harvested once a year. Though certain quality wines pick selected grapes over a number of days - picking only those that have acquired optimum suitability - this is known in France as 'triage' [picking the grapes over several passes] to wait for the later ripening grapes before harvesting all would result in the earlier ones having deteriorated, to pick all as soon as the first were ready would include those that were too acidic and had not maximised their sugar levels. Triage increases the price of the raw material. In Germany selected grapes are used to produce 'Auslese' which along with 'Spatlese' are the 2 lower rungs on the Quality with Predicates system of ranking top German wines.

Inconsistent weather or not - vines that struggle produce better wines than those that do not - flourishing vines produce leaf and branch at the expense of fruit, struggling vines produce fruit at the expense of leaf and branch. Those that struggle tend to extract much more of interest from the 'terroir'.

The weather however can ruin a years harvest - 'Vendange' - at many times during the season - late frosts can kill all the blossoms and no fruit will set, insufficient rain in the main growing season can resulted in stunted vines, but the real killer can come just before or during the harvest. Hail can damage the crop, and rain during the harvest can be disastrous, an early (partial) frost*1 can wipe out the crop . So the wine grower 'Viticulteur' has a dilemma in choosing when to pick - if it has been a bad year already, or the weather predictions are for lots of extended rain at harvest time then many will choose to get the whole harvest in as quickly as possible irrespective of the quality of the grapes all in one pass and then ask the 'Vintner' [winemaker] to produce something saleable, who may in turn hire a consultant 'Oenologist' [wine scientist] to help. #2

However even in a so called bad year some producers may hang fire with the harvest and if after the bad weather has passed and no frosts or hail have significantly harmed the crop the resultant grapes may produce an astounding wine. So even in so called 'bad' years true masterpieces may emerge, and certainly not all producers will be as badly affected.

#1 In Germany [and parts of North America] if the first real hard frost comes late in the year and there have been no partial frosts or other damage preceding then the grapes are harvested before the ice melts and the result is 'Eiswein'

Every year is a vintage! Full stop!

Not all wines will have an identifiable vintage. Full stop!

If I can group the majority of wines under the heading 'Wine' and isolate seperately Champagne, Sherry and Port.

1) Wine
If the wine is a 'serious' wine, and made as such by a credible winemaker then the extracted tannin levels and other polyphenols will bring the wine to greatness over a number of years - it is extremely useful to know the age of the wine and the year of the 'Vintage' in which it was produced. It will not be ready to start drinking for a few years, and will peak, and fade as the years tick by.

In France a complex system called 'Appelation Controlle' [controlled naming] applies to all winemaking in France providing rules and regulations that must apply before a wine can carry that name and AC accreditation the top regions each have their own 'Appelation Controlle' regulations allowing for different status grading within. #2 In a bad year a producer may downgrade his wine when labelling so as not to sully the reputation of his finest wine.

If the wine is a Semi Serious wine it may be ready to drink almost as soon as you buy it - but it will still have a shelf life - again knowing the age of the vintage is important.

In poorer years it may be necessary to blend different wines from different regions to achieve a balnced wine - this will often by regulation enforce it to be downgraded to a lower classification.

In Italy and Spain Denominacion Origin and Denominacion Origin Controlle replace the French Appelation Controlle system. They have many similarities to the French system - I will highlight one major difference.

Whereas a bottle of French wine CAN be bought almost as soon as it has been bottled [though some merchants having purchased it then will not make it available until it is ready to drink] it is up to the user to know when to start drinking it in Spain [and Italy to an extent] there are strict regulations concerning quality wine. Young wine (the previous harvest usually) is marketed without any fancy labelling and may omit the vintage, often referred to as Jovenes or Young wine but NOT on the label. Older wines are successively labelled as Crianza, Riserva and Grand Riserva and must go through 2 aging processes before they are allowed to be labelled and sold the first in Oak or similar and the second in bottle.

The less serious wines do not command a price that is high enough to warrant a lot of extra work rescuing them in bad years.

Back to France note that beneath the Appelation Controlle regions are regions aspiring to be elevated to AC status these are called VDQS Vins Delimite Qualite Superieur and beneath them the lowest status of good drinkable wines is Vin De Pays the better regions are striving for promotion to VDQS but below these are the 3 generic Vin De Pays regions covering almost a quarter of France each for basic low level Vin De Pays. These may opt not to mention the Vintage and that will be for good reasons, in a bad year they may blend the output from several years to ensure a style that is consistent over a number of years and remain reliable to the wine drinker. These latter wines will never show the vintage.

2) Champagne
At the northernmost limit of growing conditions from year to year the quality from one grape variety and one group of vineyards cannot be guaranteed - the majority of Champagnes NEED to be blended to become drinkable, and need to be blended very skilfully to ensure a consistent house style and taste. It may include the wine from different years. This is Non-Vintage Champagne

There will be times when a single years output from a select group of vineyards is
good enough to stand alone this is Vintage Champagne from a declared year.

3) Sherry
A totally different animal
The consistency of house style and taste is achieved in a Solera - a system where this years output is slowly added to the output of several previous years - the new wine gradually takes on the taste of the original wine. The year in mention is the year the solera was started.

4) Port
Again blended to achieve consistency in a way that draws from both the methods of Champagne and Sherry blending. But in a very very good year it will be made as a Vintage Port and Declared as such. Some producers may only declare a vintage once a decade.

Port Can age for decades and in some rare occasions will be better 40 or 50 years after aging in bottle - this I believe gave rise to other products such as Cars being declared Vintage and the misappropriation of the word that mayy have caused this confusion.

How it applies to Pu-Erh I have no idea.

[vibrantdragon]

I too often wonder about stress on the leaves and trees. Good Oolong comes from the higher elevations and this stress seems to concentrate the flavor in the leaves. Plus, makes them very slow growing. With Pu'er i wonder.

[nada]

2008 not so good, the leaves were damaged early in the season.
2009 So far a very good year the leaves look great.

in 2008 there was heavy rain after the first spring picking, this led to leaves from the second picking having a lot of bitterness in a lot of places.

2009 has been exceptionally dry. The small bushes with short roots haven't done so well, but the older trees with their long roots could still reach water in the soil. The lack of rain has stressed all the trees, but this has brought out a lot of flavour in the leaves of the older trees. Yesterday we had the first decent rain in months. Lets see how this effects the leaves from the second picking.

[vibrantdragon]

2008 not so good, the leaves were damaged early in the season.
2009 So far a very good year the leaves look great.

in 2008 there was heavy rain after the first spring picking, this led to leaves from the second picking having a lot of bitterness in a lot of places.

2009 has been exceptionally dry. The small bushes with short roots haven't done so well, but the older trees with their long roots could still reach water in the soil. The lack of rain has stressed all the trees, but this has brought out a lot of flavour in the leaves of the older trees. Yesterday we had the first decent rain in months. Lets see how this effects the leaves from the second picking.

My friends mostly deal in the old trees, and I know they are very happy this year.
Last year I think around Menghai they had a lot of cold wet weather that caused some bad fungus on the leaves that ruined many of them, even before the first picking.

[TIM]

Fungus on old puerh tree's leaves? Are this common to older tree, or happens in new plantations? Could you explain a bit more, please? Thanks.

Nada, what's your view on this?

[nada]

I haven't heard of it in particular. There is plenty of fungus, moss etc growing on the trunks of the old trees, but I'd have thought that the buds & new leaves would be too fresh for fungus to take much of a hold. Still, some cold, wet weather probably lets this kind of thing thrive.

Just a thought - as I say, I haven't heard of it, but not beyond possibility.

I'll ask some farmers - off to Yiwu today, so I'll see what they say.

[vibrantdragon]

I haven't heard of it in particular. There is plenty of fungus, moss etc growing on the trunks of the old trees, but I'd have thought that the buds & new leaves would be too fresh for fungus to take much of a hold. Still, some cold, wet weather probably lets this kind of thing thrive.

Just a thought - as I say, I haven't heard of it, but not beyond possibility.

I'll ask some farmers - off to Yiwu today, so I'll see what they say.

The leaves last year were damage and it was partly caused by the bad fungus. The very cold wet weather reduced the whole yield last year. We have many close friends in the Jinghong area that work in the tea business, and it was very hard to get good leaves for tea last year in the Menghai area near Jing hong.

[Salsero]

I wonder if those "fungus" growths on old tea trees are actually lichens, harmless symbiotic organisms that indicate clean air and a healthy environment?

[TIM]

I wonder if those "fungus" growths on old tea trees are actually lichens, harmless symbiotic organisms that indicate clean air and a healthy environment?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1001 ... G_6659.jpg

There are tons of lichens growing around the bark of these older trees(300+ years), including the Crab Crawl vines hanging down the branches. But I never saw any fungus growing on the new or newer leaves. Sometimes, there might be insect bites on the edges of older leaves or silk web on the back of the leaves. Just my experience.

[Salsero]

Yes, it is hard to imagine fungus growing on a living leaf.

Great photos, Tim, of those noble old grandfather trees. They are amazing. Thanks.

[vibrantdragon]

Yes, it is hard to imagine fungus growing on a living leaf.

Great photos, Tim, of those noble old grandfather trees. They are amazing. Thanks.

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/ho ... p697-1.htm

Is an okay link for fungus info on tree leaves. This is a big problem for many trees and plants.