1937 Ramos Pinto Colheita Port

[Jay Hack]

• 1937 Ramos-Pinto Porto Colheita - Portugal, Douro, Porto (2/7/2011)
  Josh Leder poured this as the dessert wine at the end of his stupendous line up for the February edition of Leo's Blind Tasting Club. I do not have the full line up written down, but it went from Marcassin to Coche to Gaja and Giacosa to Palmer and Haut Brion. This port, from a producer with which I was completely unfamiliar, was, in my view, outstanding. Roasted nuts, walnuts, cashews, caramel, citrus from the acidity and even a bit of pineapple danced well together in a moderate, not unctious, port. It was a bit light in color compared to the few other colheitas I have had. The finish was long . . . OK, it was very long. The sugar was beginning to disappear, so it was sweet without being close to cloying. Perhaps a tinu bit of VA at the very beginning, but it evaporated quickly and did not get in the way. Josh said that he was troubled by the heat from the high alcohol level. Well, it's fortified and it tasted to me just as I would have expected. Reported to be 20% ABV on the bottle, and that's about how it tasted, but well-balanced by the acidity. This was poured blind from a wide bottomed decanter, but I do not know for how long it was decanted.
  
  This wine is aged in oak and was bottled within the past few decades (someone said 1988 but I could not find that on the bottle and my research indicates it was probably later). Roy Hersh has gotten inconsistent results with this port, depending upon bottling date. I guess we got one of the better bottles, because this was definitely in the 90s rather than in the low 80s. Although there does not seem to be a lot of this available, if it's your birth year, or even more fun if it is your parent's birth year, this is a reasonably priced bottle to search for and share. (92 pts.)

[Andy Velebil]

Jay,
Glad you got to enjoy this bottle and this it showed well. As for bottling dates on Colheitas, there is a lot of debate from all sides regarding Colheitas improving or not with extended bottle age. Some producers say their's will continue to develop in bottle and get better with some degree of time, and some saying they are best consumed closest to the date of bottling.

My own emperical evidence suggest it can go either way. I've had some older bottlings that have shown exceptionally well and some that haven't shown so well. Some producers like Niepoort and Constantino (Prior to being sold many decades ago) have held up remakably well overall.

As for this bottling I've had it about four or five times and overall the newer bottlings have typically shown better than the older ones.

[Roy Hersh]

Jay,

Glad you enjoyed it. Always fun to try something this old and 1937 was one of the more prolific years when it comes to a vast quantity of Colheitas being produced. In fact for oldies, I believe 1937 has the broadest number of Colheitas still available.

As to the bottle variance issue, like any wine ... when they get that old, it all boils down to their storage first. Bottling dates can matter, but for Colheitas, I think THAT hype is overblown by many.