1985 Croft Vintage Port

[Moses Botbol]

Opened 20:00

21:00 – Pinkish purple color. Thick in glass with soft flowery notes. Definite berry taste; some say blackberry or strawberry. Bottled opened up quick once decanted. Large flaky sediment in bottle. This port is in its prime, ready to drink now. 87 Points

[Roy Hersh]

Good job Moses. This is pretty much exactly how I feel bout that Croft too!

[Michael Whitehead]

is that a 1 hour decant, and if so, would you recommend the same still, one year later? thanks in advance. :)

Opened 20:00

21:00 – Pinkish purple color. Thick in glass with soft flowery notes. Definite berry taste; some say blackberry or strawberry. Bottled opened up quick once decanted. Large flaky sediment in bottle. This port is in its prime, ready to drink now. 87 Points

[Moses Botbol]

is that a 1 hour decant, and if so, would you recommend the same still, one year later? thanks in advance. :)

Opened 20:00

21:00 – Pinkish purple color. Thick in glass with soft flowery notes. Definite berry taste; some say blackberry or strawberry. Bottled opened up quick once decanted. Large flaky sediment in bottle. This port is in its prime, ready to drink now. 87 Points

Yes. Decanting time and bottle aging has been talked about on the forums, but no has gone into any depth what one year means in decanting time.

Put it this way- at one hour, any less time would be no decanting at all. I think 1-4 hours is fine, but start drinking at 1 hour and decide from there.

[Michael Whitehead]

3:15pm, removed capsule to find crusty/moldy growth. extracted mushy cork in two whole parts. poured thru unbleached paper coffee filter into a riedel funnel into a reidel decanter. noticed a slight brown coloring but still retaining a firm brick red at it's core. immediately poured about 1 ounce in glass to test. decanting took 15 minutes, didn't expect it to take so long, eventually gave up on the coffee filter drip and went with a mesh thingy you stick directly into the neck of the bottle. turns out it was just as slow. :help:
nose of stewed fruit but nothing stewed about it's first sip. raspberry kirschy with no detectable heat, this taste quite yummy. bright acid, well balanced, fruit driven. better than i anticipated. will check back in an hour.

[Moses Botbol]

You must go to a fabric store and buy some muslin or cheesecloth for decanting. One $20 purchase will last you years and years.

So, what's your final verdict on the Croft '85?

[Michael Whitehead]

i read roy's decanting page, thus the coffee filter, but i also saw him talking about the cheesecloth too. i'm on it!

1 hour later shows a nice mellowing and melding of fruit into a smokey tea profile. i should have had more when first opened, as i am really into fruit driven wines, but the hour change shows it still has that raspberry plus the smokiness. at this point, i think i like it better than you did, but maybe only by a point. which still doesn't make it a great buy for me. $60 and 88 points?

but, this is my first solo venture with vp (offlines, everyone else dotted the i's and crossed the t's, all i had to do was drink....) and i can tell you i certainly have the fever!

[David Spriggs]

Hi tbird! Good to see you here instead of vino cellar for a bit. Keep those Port TN's coming!
-Dave-