Poor old vintage port producers, over here en masse to launch their latest vintage, the elegant, vibrant and precociously attractive 2007s, to, alas, an ever-underwhelmed British public.

Port remains one of the most unfashionable fortified wines. In these straitened times, as one leading port shipper privately confessed: “You’d be mad to declare the ’07s a vintage year and mad not to declare it.”

And yet there is something so darned charming, racy, delicate and surprisingly polished about the 2007s that if I were a port shipper I’d want to declare it, too.

The atypical vintage of 2007 caught every port producer on the hop from the outset. It was a make-or-break year that on several occasions during the long, cool growing season could have ended in disaster.

After a wet but warmer than usual winter the vines took their time in spring, and a cool, wet summer culminated in rampant rot and downy mildew.

Unlike the washout in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, Portugal enjoyed a cool, dry August and a fine run-up to the sunny, ten-day-late vintage.

Putting port in perspective with other great, classic wines of Europe, the Douro’s ancient vinha velha vines produce less than a kilo of grapes per vine, with the leading port houses producing only 6,000-10,000 cases of their finest vintages, easily less than a few per cent of the total production.

Yet, for once in the world of wine, scarcity has not sent vintage port prices into the stratosphere. The best 2007s cost about £30-£45 a bottle.

All of this explains why my top wines, Dow’s delicious, dry, polished ’07 and Graham’s silky, rose-scented ’07, are worth buying now to put away for a decade, perhaps two, before they are ready to drink.

On the next tier comes Noval’s silky red fruit; Vesuvio’s bold, peppery spice; Taylor’s hefty, floral ’07, and Warre’s robust, blackberry-scented ’07.

After that it’s the sweet redcurranty fruit of Vale Dona Maria’s 07, Ferreira’s fragrant, floral spice, Pocas Quinta de Santa Bárbara’s peppery grip and Churchill’s Quinta da Gricha’s intense mulberry fruit.

Merchants to buy them from include Berry Bros, Majestic, Montrachet, Corney’s, Tanners, Laytons and Justerini’s.

This week’s best buys

— Australian non-vintage Chardonnay; Sainsbury’s, £3.75. Don’t be sniffy; ordinary oak-chipped Aussie chardonnay such as this lively, bold, sappy, oaky, non-vintage, own-label edition has its place on the summer table, too.

— 2008 Merlot, Vin de Pays de la Cité de Carcassonne, Beaulieu, France; Sainsbury’s, £3.99. Caroline de Beaulieu’s merlot delivers all the juicy, inky, plummy, easy-drinking, crimson summer fruit that anyone could ask for.

— 2007 Sylvaner, Mittelbergheim, Domaine L. et A. Rieffel, France; Berry Bros, £9.60. Don’t just go to Berry’s for upper-crust bottles. This ripe, appley, floral Alsace white punches well above its weight.

— 2007 Rioja Crianza, Bodegas Palacios Remondo, Spain; Berry Bros, £9.25. Smart yet contemporary-styled red rioja is still a rarity, so lap up this summer-suitable ripe, sweet, red berry-stashed ’07 and rejoice.

The keeper

2006 Mercurey, Clos Rond, Monopole Domaine Faiveley, France; Nicolas, £16.99. An American friend introduced me to this gorgeous young red burgundy. Although it is from a humble appellation it is blessed with oodles of delicious ripe, crunchy, beetroot and damson fruit. Perfect now with the likes of chargrilled red meat, though not barbecued. You could hang on to this until 2011 for gamey, spicy flavours to develop — that’s if you can wait that long.

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