Question about drinking window vintage port

[Monique Heinemans.]

Some time ago I red (I think it was somewhere on this forum) about the drinking window for vintage port. Someone wrote that he had a rule of thumb and mostly started to drink his VP after 21 years. Please correct me if I'm wrong, or did misunderstood, but why would that make sense? And why choose 21 year? Why not 18 or 23? Doesn't it depent on the vintage and the brand or housestyle?
How do you portlovers know when a VP has come together and is "ready to drink"? I personaly love to drink them young as well as mature..
Would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this question.

[John M.]

Multi-faceted questions...I think 21 because that is the age when people are officially adults in most legal settings, but I am guessing on that. I think 20 years seems like a good rule of thumb to start really opening, assess and go from there for the future.

To me the fun really happens at 35 years of age or so. Nice and aged.

One of the points of FTLOP is collective Port wisdom, which is why TN s are so important.Lately I've tried to include my decanting time and any other subsequent days and results to help the next person.

[Eric Ifune]

It started with people laying down birthyear Port for their children when born. Legal to drink when they turn 21.

[Eric Menchen]

Except for I had always heard that 21 was a British thing, and that Americans liked to drink their Ports younger. But the drinking age in the UK is not 21, but generally 18.

Now as for the question, many people enjoy their VPs young and fruit forward. And while I generally like to wait, I can say I've enjoyed younger Ports as well. But there is an age where a VP might "shut down." There are oxidation and reduction reactions going on, and at some point those may put the wine out of balance, or make it "closed," where it doesn't have the power, fruit, and tannins of a young wine, but some of the secondary flavors aren't there yet, or perhaps are masked. This is a brief explanation. When is this phase? It will vary by wine, and storage conditions, but I'll throw out a range of 10-20 years. Others probably have a better idea than me. But in any case, perhaps waiting until 21 years gets you past this phase nearly all of the time.

[Monique Heinemans.]

Oké, thank you for your thoughts on this, so it might be an adult thing, funny, never thought of that.
But this closed fase, is it predictable and the same for any brand or year? And are VP's from generally declared years shutting down longer dan single quinta vintage ports?

Last two weeks I had some VP (Croft Roeda 2005 and Niepoort 2000) which I had drunk also many times before and both scored not as good as the previous bottles which I drunk last in 2016. Fonseca 2000 VP was a stunner in his youth imo, but now has lost some of his fruit and I could not detect anything new in return. Could it be they are in this dumb fase?

[Moses Botbol]

Modern vintages from 90's on I would put it more at 30+ years before being ready. The newer vintages are comparably more powerful and youthful than the 70-80's vintages.

[LOUISSS J]

I drink Vintage Port as soon as i can (around 3 or 4 years) in 375ml bottle to see how is the new vintage. Generally i drink 3 or 4 bottles.
After i wait at least 20 years because i don't think that the Port will be different. I dont' have too much occasions to drink Port older than 40 years but my best spot is after 30 years.