2003 Dow Vintage Port

[Peter W. Meek]

Unusually for me, I've tried a relatively young VP. Decanted (very wide ship-decanter giving a LOT of air) at 4:00 PM through coffee filter. Much fine sediment clogging the filter to the point where filtering slowed almost to a stop.

A quick sample looked almost cloudy, making me wonder if there were such fine solids that they passed the filter. Super fruit taste with cherry/wild cherry being dominant. Not especially aromatic, but it was still cool having come from the cellar.

Beginning around 6:00 (+2hrs) began drinking before, during, and after dinner (Olive/cheese(incl Stilton)/salami board, Eva's Trail Mix (equal parts walnuts, pecans, almonds, dried tart cherries); baguettes (with and without Asagio cheese)/spicy dipping oil; Spicy shrimp/capellini; Marinara/penne; Carrot/cabbage salad), with bottles of a Prosecco(x2), a Tuscan red blend(x3), and a Malvasia also on the table, followed by a massive (pot-lucks can be slightly unbalanced) dessert array including triple chocolate mini-cakes, fruit plate(melons/strawberry/grapes w/Marscapone dip), Swedish Sugar Cake with cardamom.

Six of us (including a nearly-non-drinker, a light drinker, Paul (mentioned elsewhere on FTLOP as the man that can make a bottle of Nimrod last for more than a year), and three normal to heavy drinkers. Everyone at least tasted the Dow, and liked it. I didn't say anything, but I thought the super-fruit had diminished markedly by 2 hours open -- I liked it best immediately after opening.

By 10 PM (+6 hrs) things had wound down to alcohol and conversation. To me, the last sips of the port had gone a bit flat; not much nose, and subdued taste. I think next time I decant this, I will bring it to room temperature first, return it to the bottle almost immediately, and begin drinking almost immediately.

I really liked this when first opened, but I don't have enough VPs under my belt (and almost no young ones) to give a useful numeric rating. I will say it is well into the upper quartile of VPs that I have tried.

[Glenn E.]

To my taste some of the 2003s are starting to close down, so you might want to try giving this a good 24 hours of decant time to wake back up.

[Roy Hersh]

Glenn,

In which particular 2003s did you experience this?