10 Year Old Tawny Port by Kopke

[Eric Ifune]

True tawny color. Much less pigment than many other 10 year olds.
Very intense rich nose. Butterscotch, dried fruits, toffee. A bit of alcohol and just a hint of VA.
Initially a bit disjointed, hot and closed, but with several minutes of aeration, this has opened up. Rich and flavorful and quite long.
One of the better 10 year olds I've had, but it needs a lot of air. My guess is that it has a considerable amount of wine much older than 10 years in the blend.

[Roy Hersh]

Eric,

Please do update us on the evolution of this bottle for a couple of days. That would be most interesting!

Roy

[Andy Velebil]

You've nailed my day-1 thoughts on this. That fire should mellow by day two and three. Let us know how she does. For some reason this is hard to find around me, and when I do find it, it tends to be quite a bit more in price than other 10 year olds.

[Glenn E.]

A couple of years ago when I talked to Fernando Oliveiras, the master blender for Kopke, he said that the Kopke 10-yr old averaged closer to 14 years old. So you nailed it!

[Eric Ifune]

Day two. Has mellowed a bit more. Nice flavors and richness, still a bit hot on the finish. Looking forward to see if there's more improvment.

[Eric Ifune]

At 48 hours, now this is at it's peak. The balance has improved. Still with butterscotch and nutty aromas and flavors. Nice acid and intensity. Good length.

[Andy Velebil]

Glad to hear it got better. The NV Kopke Vintage Character took about the same amount of time to show it's best...obviously not as good as this one though

[Jonathan S]

I'm sipping on some of this right now, and I must say that it is outstanding! I think it may be my new favorite 10-year old tawny (old favorite - Graham's).