1994 Quinta do Vesuvio Porto Vintage - Portugal, Douro, Porto (3/14/2017)
Not the monstrous brute that I remember from my last sample about 9 years ago. This is starting to show development in the tannin department, but still quite youthful. Deep, dark, plummy fruit with notes of tar, spice and licorice. Masculine, dense and palate-staining. Lovely persistence. This has a long way to go until fully developed; a real masterpiece. (95 pts.)
I tasted it last summer. I believe I did a taste note inhere as well. I recall I had it at 95 or 96 point currently with a sense that this could reach 98 points in it's life time.
Roy Hersh wrote:The question remains, given the short history of Vesuvio in producing VP for the Symington family, is 1994 the favorite vintage of forumites?
Question #2: Have you (a collective YOU) ever tried the 2011 Vesuvio? If yes, what is your thoughts on that Port?
Uh, that's gonna be a close one. I thought I had uploaded my 2011 notes on Vesuvio. Seems I haven't. I need to find my notebook with those notes in it and get back to you....now, where did I put said TN book
Roy Hersh wrote:The question remains, given the short history of Vesuvio in producing VP for the Symington family, is 1994 the favorite vintage of forumites?
Question #2: Have you (a collective YOU) ever tried the 2011 Vesuvio? If yes, what is your thoughts on that Port?
Uh, that's gonna be a close one. I thought I had uploaded my 2011 notes on Vesuvio. Seems I haven't. I need to find my notebook with those notes in it and get back to you....now, where did I put said TN book
+1. 1994 Vesuvio is easily top 3 (for me) of that vintage, and we all know how good that vintage is. So that's really saying something.
I can't remember if I've tried 2011 Vesuvio yet, though I suspect that I have. I don't have any notes in the TNDB, but that doesn't mean much because I'm 2-3 years behind getting those entered.
I remember 1994 Vesuvio as a cask sample, in the early days of the Port trade doing cask samples. Then a fairly new just bottled sample too. The Vesuvio was incredible. The tannins were massive, mouthfilling and ripe, yet unlike the Taylor's 1994 back then and others too, the tannins were not astringent. The fruit was even bigger and darker than it is today, not in terms of color but in a pitch black licorice and blackberry sort of way. Considering where I was at financially back then, I spent a lot of money on this particular Port, as the lowest price I found in the USA at the time was $38 pre-release. I had no doubt, even 2 decades ago, that this VP would last the rest of my life ... and I see no reason why that won't be the case.