What have you opened this week?

[Mike J. W.]

1960 Warres
1983 Dows
1985 Burmester
1985 Ferreira

3 Warres LBVs: 2002-2003-2004

All last night for a local tasting! Quite a night.

What was the WOTN? How was the 1960 Warre's?

[John M.]

1960 Warres
1983 Dows
1985 Burmester
1985 Ferreira

3 Warres LBVs: 2002-2003-2004

All last night for a local tasting! Quite a night.

What was the WOTN? How was the 1960 Warre's?

1983 Dows. The 1960 Warres was fine--but seemed past peak and had limited complexity.

[Glenn E.]

2008 DR White Colheita
2015 Graham LBV
NV S. Leonardo 40 Year Old Tawny Port

Before dinner, with the brisket for dinner, and after dinner respectively.

40 may be corked... I'll have to have the Port Club check it tonight

[Marc J.]

1960 Niepoort Colheita

[Yev Nyden]

1997 Quinta do Crasto Porto Colheita

[Mike J. W.]

1995 Delaforce Quinta Da Corte.

[Glenn E.]

1983 Gould Campbell Vintage Port
NV Taylor Very Very Old Tawny Port, Platinum Jubilee Edition

[Moses Botbol]

1966 Graham last Saturday. Solid port.

[Mike J. W.]

1977 Offley Boa Vista.

[Eric Menchen]

1997 Quinta do Vesuvio. No surprise here--still going strong. No rush to open the next one.

[Glenn E.]

1977 Gould Campbell, magnum

A wonderful Port. Even more wonderful in magnum.

[Scott Esterly]

1977 Gould Campbell, magnum

A wonderful Port. Even more wonderful in magnum.

I opened a bad bottle of 77 Gould Campbell over the weekend unfortunately- tasted awful…I’m guessing oxidized? I will have to be more careful with sourcing.

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[Scott Esterly]

I rated this a 91 the night I opened it after 7 hours of decanting - I finished it a full 30 hours later and, in all honesty, would now rate it a 92 or even a 93

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[Glenn E.]

Gould Campbells need a lot more decant time than you would expect from what's usually thought of as a second tier producer. I decanted the magnum for 8.5 hours then it went back in the bottle for 1.5 before we started drinking it. It probably took 3 hours to get to the bottom of the bottle and it continued to improve the entire time.

Granted that was a magnum, but I'd even decant a 750 of the '77 for 8 hours to then drink over the next 2.

'80, '83, and '85 need similar amounts of decant time. They're not quite as good as the '77 (to me), but are younger so those two things counter-balance one another.

The '83 that I opened last Saturday seemed off that night, and didn't really reach full potential until about last Thursday. 5 days later. An '80 that was opened at the same time had a similar performance profile... it wasn't at its best until Thursday, either.

All that said... they can be delicious with little to no decant time, too. There was a '97 opened alongside my magnum of '77, but it was pop-and-pour. It showed great, but didn't last long enough to determine how much better it might have been with a proper decant.

[Mike J. W.]

I've run into multiple bad bottles of both the '77 and '80 Gould's, but when they're good, they're very good. They're one of my favorite second tier producers along with Offley Boa Vista (which could well be third tier, but I'll give them a promotion since I like them so much).

[Eric Ifune]

San Leonardo 20 yo.

[Andy Velebil]

1992 Quevedo Colheita
1995 Fonseca Guimaraens VP

[Mike J. W.]

1994 Graham's VP
Edit: I'll do a tasting note after I've had this over a few nights, but last night (the first night), this bottle was absolutely amazing. It's probably one of the best Ports I have ever had. It makes no sense to me because the '94 Graham's is normally a good, but not great Port, but this was incredibly smooth, harmonious and bursting with so many different flavors. We'll see how it fairs tonight.

[Scott Esterly]

Taylor Fladgate 30 year tawny. I hadn’t opened a tawny in a long time and figured I’d open a nice one. Taylor’s isn’t normally my favorite Tawny, but I quite enjoyed this. I’ll make this one last for a couple weeks.

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[Lucas S]

Quinta do Vale Dona Maria Reserve Ruby Lote 18 (2018 vintage, bottled June 2020) I like that they provide the year, 6499 bottles produced.

Wow these are lovely and great QPR for $14. The aroma and flavor is Riojaesque and sweet, the finish is not the longest, but it's very easy to drink. With an actual driven cork and plenty of tannins, there is enough here for some aging as well.

Seabra Liquors had cases of them stacked up, I might go back for a 6-pk of these.