1995 Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Intense red colour, right into the rim. Tears on the glass are red in colour, looks extremely young.

Intense smell coming out of the glass. Blackcurrants and soft bramble fruit. Alcohol well integrated.

Fruit and soft acidic entry. Waves and waves of blackcurrant fruit drops overwhelm your mouth and force you to swallow the wine, but it is no hardship to swallow. Beautiful balance of acidity and fruit with no tannins that I noticed. No immediate aftertaste on swallowing, but a chocolate tinge gradually developed that lasted at a faint level for a considerable time. 92/100 - a superb fruit blast!

Its worth noting that I bought this as a glass from the wine bar I had lunch in yesterday. The manager of the bar was very honest and told me the bottle had been opened 6 days previously! I was gobsmacked when he told me the wine had had 6 days sitting in the bottle and yet was still such an overwhelming blast of fruit. What a fabulous fruit-monster of a wine this must be with 2-3 days of decanter time.

Alex

[simon Lisle]

Sounds good Alex I bought a case of this at auction as it is my sons birth year I paid £130 about two years ago for it.I'll wait untill he get's a bit older before I try one.

[Mike McCune]

This wine is such a baby. I opened a second one 3 weeks ago, did not decant and stored in the fridge. It was extremely unbalanced out of the shoot leaning heavily toward acids on the nose with caramel and licorice showing over the fruit. The notes from my initial bottle say 'exotic acids'. I do not consider myself supersensitive to oxidation as opposed to my wife but she also found this quite enjoyable after the long slow exposure to air.

After 3 1/2 weeks in the fridge I poured a glass one evening that did not get drunk. The next morning it was tasting great. I drank the whole thing immediately but slowly before anyone came downstairs. A 2nd glass was poured and drunk exactly the same way (ok, I'm between jobs).

I totally agree with bridgema's assesment of flavors 'black currents and soft bramble fruit'. It has enormous amounts of character and my bottle showed a dark violet colored body(like my garnet roses). A schisty minerality is present but so integrated that it seems to cling to the sides of your mouth (as you inhale after swallowing) along with the softened ripe tannins and dark velvety fruit. This has such a long enjoyable finish that only fantastic balance can provide with consistent flavors now on the nose that follow to the palate all the way to the end for almost a minute with subtle lingering beyond that point.

This should benefit greatly from cellaring till 2015-2020+. Initially I was hoping to drink this way before the 94 but now doubt the 'way' part.

I found the Croft 95 required quite a bit of air as well before showing itself but did not have the longevity of the Fonseca or Taylor.

93+/100

[Al B.]

I had the chance to try another glass of this port from a freshly opened bottle, about a year after my last tasting of it. It still stuns me with its fruity youthfulness.

Deep, intense and opaque red. Intense nose of blackcurrants, smelling very young. Smooth entry, bringing all the fruit promised on the nose. Tannins and acidity are there to provide structure, but don't really reveal themselves. In the mid-palate the fruit just keeps building up until your mouth has watered so much that you are forced to swallow. When you do the aftertaste lingers a long while as it slowly fades from blackcurrant pie through to a slightly bitter chocolately memory. Drinking nicely now but will probably be better in 10 years. 6-7 on Tom's scale. This is so young that I had to go back and check the bottle to make sure it was the '95 vintage.

Alex

[Tom Archer]

Alex,

Congratualtions on reaching your 1000th post!

'95 seems to be emerging as a very sound SQ year - 2005 might be even better!

High on my list for consumption is a lone bottle of FG84 - however, I expect this to be a drink-through exercise, with some steak on hand to marinate - if the worst comes to the worst!

Tom

[Al B.]

I hadn't realised that I had just posted by 1,000th post Thanks for pointing it out to me otherwise I would have completely missed it.

Perhaps this calls for a celebration with a glass of port

More seriously, I'll be very interested to hear what you (Tom) think of the 1984 FG. From what I've read I don't expect it will knock you off your feet in surprise, but I don't expect that it will disgrace itself.

Alex

[Ronald Wortel]

Thanks for the TN! I have a couple of bottles, I guess I'll let them sit in the cellar a little while longer.

About the FG84: I had it about 3 years ago at a trade fair and it showed very nice then. Not overly complex and fully mature, but very nice flavours.