1985 Quarles Harris Vintage Port

[Glenn E.]

From day 2 of the 1985 horizontal, 24-25 Jan 2015, Holiday Inn Issaquah. All Ports were tasted blind. Unless otherwise noted, Ports were decanted for ~4 hours the morning of the tasting. The ones that I decanted received ~8 hours of decant overnight and were then stoppered for another ~6 hours until the tasting.

1985 Quarles Harris Vintage Port

Color: Medium red/tawny, some yellow-orange in the rim. Starting to show its age.

Nose: Fig, light prune, some light caramel.

Palate: Light and fairly thin. Some oak? Maybe some butter? Pretty strange palate... seems very oxidized, but not in any way I've encountered before.

Score: 84 points. While pleasant, this was a very strange vintage Port. I kept waffling between a bad seal and heat damage, but ultimately couldn't really say for certain that either had occurred even though the Port seems very prematurely aged. Possibly should have been N/R, but I left it as scored.