TN: 1980 Graham Porto Vintage (Portugal, Douro, Porto)

[John Danza]

• 1980 Graham Porto Vintage - Portugal, Douro, Porto (7/12/2014)
  From magnum, drunk 6 hours after being double decanted.
  
  Nice medium red color. The alcohol heat was fully tamed, leaving a great layer of fruit and medium sweetness. Plums, cherries, chocolate on the palate. While this is a magnum format, the wine performed about the same as some prior 750ml bottles from the past several years. The wine is fully mature and probably won't get any better by holding it, there is still at least 5-7 years of enjoyable drinking left, so no rush to drink up. (92 pts.)
  

Posted from CellarTracker

[Roy Hersh]

John,

I had one of these while visiting Graham's and found it bright ruby, fresh, lively and outside of the 1980 Dow's and possibly the Gould Campbell ... it is right up there with the best of the vintage. In my opinion this was just starting to really come into its own. Somewhat young and about as mature as the Dow from the same vintage. Maybe a point or two separates them. Just my two cents and one man's opinion.

[John Danza]

I don't disagree Roy that it's an excellent port, as my comments and rating noted. I do think that the Dow and the Gould Campbell are in a completely different league though. It could be that the bottle you had at Graham's speaks to the issue of bottles varying as they get older. Remember the old saying that after a number of years "there's no such thing as good years, just good bottles". I would expect a bottle at the producer to be much better than one that's been out "in the wild" for 32 years. The notes I gave to this bottle are consistent with others I've had.

[Andy Velebil]

I would expect a bottle at the producer to be much better than one that's been out "in the wild" for 32 years.

Some here may take a varying view point on this when it comes to older bottles stored in Gaia.

[John Danza]

I would expect a bottle at the producer to be much better than one that's been out "in the wild" for 32 years.

Some here may take a varying view point on this when it comes to older bottles stored in Gaia.

Ah, good to know Andy. My only experience with library bottles is France, where those have been pretty good.

[Andy Velebil]

John,
Most of the cellars (Lodges) in Gaia are above ground and don't have active cooling. Mainly as most of the year it's generally quite cool. However, in the summer it can warm up quite a bit. Typically they would water the dirt floors in the Lodges to cool it down. That works...to a point. There is empirical evidence that isn't the best way to keep bottled Ports for long term. Some ex-cellars bottles have shown more advanced signs of aging than bottles which where exported soon after bottling and stored in properly cooled cellars.

That isn't to say some producers don't have better cooled cellars. I've been in Cockburn's "older bottle" part of their Lodge (I don't know if it's still in use now that the Sym's have taken it over). That one was basically underground so would probably stay cooler than the above ground Lodge above it. And Noval was one of the first to have an actively cooled cellar building at their Quinta in the Douro to store stuff at.

[David Spriggs]

I'm still a fan of buying in the UK from Bonded storage. It doesn't come much more reliable than that. I'm not saying that Porto ex-cellars isn't good, because it generally is, but the bottles that I have gotten from the UK seem generally pristine.
As for the 1980 Graham, stellar wine. It's one of my personal favorites. I don't think that it needs to be drunk up, but it is on a plateau and there is no reason to wait. I like where the wine is now.

[Moses Botbol]

John,

I had one of these while visiting Graham's and found it bright ruby, fresh, lively and outside of the 1980 Dow's and possibly the Gould Campbell ... it is right up there with the best of the vintage. In my opinion this was just starting to really come into its own. Somewhat young and about as mature as the Dow from the same vintage. Maybe a point or two separates them. Just my two cents and one man's opinion.

Taylor and Sandeman also did well in that vintage, but are further along. As you say, it's only a point or two separating Grahams vintages in this decade.