For The Love Of Port

Taylor 10yr - bottled 1988

These Taylor 10yrs are very consistant - they take about ten years in bottle to lose their rough edges, and then very gradually become ever more serene. I've never had one that seemed over the hill.

Lightly chilled in the fridge, fine sipping on a hot summer's evening..

Dow is probably nominally filtered, thus not qualifying for the "Unfiltered" designation. One producer, in my presence, once remarked: 'Does straining out the pips and flies count as filtration?' The IVDP's definition of unfiltered, taken literally, seems problematic. The situation is a b...

I think Smith Woodhouse and Warres LBVs receive minimal filtering and both age well.

They are marketed as unfiltered - or bottle matured - but the Dow isn't

1994 Taylor Fladgate LBV (filtered). This is a great, aged LBV. The degree of filtration matters enormously, yet we are always left guessing about this. The Niepoort LBVs do not qualify as unfiltered, yet age very well for decades, something that appears to be intentional. The Taylor LBVs age moder...

Just about to decant a Niepoort '97 - a bottle I re-corked back in September '12 due to seepage. ..will it be good? - will it be evil? - will report later.. Edit: Decanted. Slight whiff of vinegar on the cork. First sip revealed a hint of VA, but overwhelmed by a rich super-spicyness.. ..see how it ...

For the past ten years I have stuck to a strict ration of 48 bottles of VP for home consumption each year - no more, no less.

Obviously, I make up the numbers with a good quantity of LBVs, reserves etc..

if it hits the projected 115F today Here in the UK we've had the coldest April for 35 years followed by the coldest May for 25 years. On the 21st June the temperature was a mere 55F and today a searing 65F is forecast - way below long term averages.. ..whatever happened to global warming? According...

Offley '72

What a charming little curiosity this vintage is turning into. Never a heavyweight, but with an elegance all of it's own. Sadly I only downed one glass on day one of the decant and it was getting a little jammy on day two, but still very agreeable.

Score 8-7

Can you explain your scoring scale? My scoring system is relative rather than absolute, to avoid the problem of 'grade creep'. Of all the VPs I taste in a year, I endeavour to award 5% with a 0 score, 5% with a 10 score and 10% each with the scores 1 thru 9. The first number is my assessment of the...

Fonseca 94 First time I've decanted one of these at home. Still very young, closed, not at all expressive. And although a reasonable colour, on the palate it comes over as a bit of a lightweight, and gives little satisfaction. It doesn't strike me as Fonseca's finest hour. Might blossom one day, but...

Now that things are opening back up I guess we will see what happens. And aside from the wine market, I think there are going to be significant lasting changes. A lot of people who attend offlines are city office workers, who have been obliged to 'WFH' for the last few months. My impression is that...

I pitch occasional bids at auction, but hardly anything comes home this year. I'm not sure whether the elevated prices are a 'new normal' or something that will evaporate with the return to economic normality. I have virtually no need of VP pre 2003, and my statistical understock of some vintages fr...

Messias Cachao '70 Is this the first time I've ever opened a Messias VP? It seems so.. In style terms this is a VERY tawny VP - I'm not quite sure how they can achieve such an evident concentration of sugars, with fat teardrops running down the side of the glass, in the regulation time between vinif...

Taylor Vargellas 1967 From a ten bottle stash bought in November 2009. This stash was also recently flagged for inspection, which resulted in the observation that of the remaining seven bottles, the one with lowest ullage, bottle G, had a sticky neck, suggesting seepage. However, when recording the ...

6 of the 2019 Symington Vintage Ports. Some stellar ones. Still writing up the review and will hopefully have it finished soon.

I've had very mixed messages about the 2019 vintage - will be interested to see what you've made of those six

Noval 82 The Noval signature is a very difficult one to verbalise - Noval tastes like.. err.. Noval. Although this is not a great wine it expresses that signature very well, so a good one to try if you're not clear in your mind what a mature Noval tastes like. This wine was made in the middle of Nov...

Croft 1985 Not quite as dire as the last bottle I opened from this case, but still a weak offering. Slight VA that mostly blew off on an otherwise slightly candied nose, colour thin but otherwise clean and fresh in the glass. Probably the weakest Croft VP of the past century, so one to drink up or p...

Warres LBVs are so good they are like a SQVP Whisper that quietly or you'll give the Sym's ideas.. :D The distribution strategy of the Warre LBVs remains mysterious. I'm not sure if we ever saw the 2002 in the UK - it may have appeared fleetingly, but the other years appeared steadily, one after an...

Warre '83 When the '75 vintage approached its 40th year, a very underwhelming vintage started to blossom. In 2015, tastings of the '85 @30 and '75 @40 took place in fairly close succession in London, and there was universal agreement that the '75s won the contest. Now that the '83s are closing on th...

1997 Dow After sticking to the minimum drinking age for VP at home I first set over a decade ago, this is the first '97 I've opened at home since 2008. Good Dow 'dour' signature, although much spicier than Dow's of old. Not fully mature, but not excessively immature either; so for those who prefer t...