I had planned on opening a Tarylor's Vargells 1965 to celebrate my birthday yesterday but found my single bottle of Messias 1965 to be leaking so picked that instead.
The cork was extremely wet and broke in half as soon as I applied upward pressure. The piece that was left in the neck then crumbled into 1,000 pieces. No amount of glue was going to save the situation but, luckily, the top half of the cork has enough branding on it to recognise what it is. Phew!
The wine decanted cleanly off a huge amount of black gunk. The colour had more red in it that I had expected but was very tawny looking. The mouthfeel was reasonably thick on entry but then weakend quickly in the mouth. The predominent tastes were oranges and caramel with no red fruit to speak of. A short to medium length finish with too much heat for me.
To be honest, I did not have high hopes for this bottle (a leaker from a very bad year and a shipper not really known for their VP) and it lived up to expectation. That said, it is now a respectable tawny and I will drink the remainder of the bottle chilled to see if it works better that way.
As a VP this is a 2-1
I can't wait to try my Vargells 65 in 12 months time
Derek
