1963 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Port A with 9 hours double decanting.
Deep red but transparent center, colour holding into the rim. Sweet, ripe fruit nose. A touch of mustiness, brambles and obvious alcohol. Full bodied entry, sweet but with a fierce mid-palate pepperiness from the inintegrated alcohol. The tannins in the mouth are well integrated but the alcohol is fierce. The typical mintiness that a Taylor sometimes shows.
The aftertaste starts with a lot of red licorice and a very hot finish but has good length and development. The heat in the mid-palate spoiled this for me and made a good port poor, certainly below the average of what I would expect to drink this year. Very difficult to predict how this port will develop with the extremely obvious alcohol. I rated this a score (out of 10) of 3 for current drinking and 2 for drinking in 10 years time or 85/100

[Footnote: On Roy's suggestion we poured the remainder of this wine back into the decanter and came back to it at the end of the evening. With the additional 3 hours of time in the decanter, this wine had changed substantially with the alcohol having integrated beautifully. To me, this was the wine of the night (just) and I thank Paul for letting me have the last glass as a birthday present, but I admit to a bias for this particular port as it was the one I was given as a 21'st birthday gift. Scoring after having put this back in the decanter for three hours would have been 9/9 or 95/100 - this will have been one of the 15 best bottles I will taste this year, although probably not one of the best 5.]

Port A - Taylors 1963; a Berry Brothers bottling that had lain in their cellars since being bottled. In lovely condition and a great wine. Thanks to Paul for this contribution.

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