1966 Moreira Colheita Port

[Jay Powers]

1966 Moreira Colheita (bottled 2000, tasted 2007)

The Moreira is a strange one, in that its not that good at first, but gets better, and was maybe best at 1-2 weeks, which seems like an awfully long time to me, despite the fact that I am a firm believer that many ports get considerably better with time in decanter.

To start with there's lots of sediment (for a colheita), and although I decanted cleanly off the visible sediment the result was cloudy. This was into a crystal decanter (think the bourbon type).

The first taste is not that good. In fact the first bottle I opened I was very dissapointed, and then ignored it for a week (being too lazy to empty it down the sink). I tried it again about one week later and it was much better (and I was glad I had not tossed it!).

I have tried two bottles so far, and my experience was the same both times. The second time I followed it over two weeks, and it kept getting better every day, but was not really good until ~7 days. During that time it changes color dramatically as well (going from pale to quite dark).

For the ~$20/bottle I paid for it, it's good value, but only if you can wait some time after decanting it.

Jay