2006 Dow LBV Port

[Jim R.]

Excellent dark purple color; deep but muted blackberry, cassis nose; full bodied deep currant, blackberry flavors, tannic with good acidity, would age except bottled with plastic topped short cork (375 ml), definite tannins to resolve. Airing brought out the aromas. For a LBVP at least a 92 point wine. Plastic topped short corks do not age well in my experience. Should be recorked with a full sized cork.

The 10yr, 20 yr, and 2006 lbvp were a taster set of 373 ml bottles with the second best (after the 2006 lbvp) was a manual blend of the 20 yr and the 2006 it was still very fruit forward but had accents of the toffee and still very structured. Lots of fun for the new year. About two thirds lbvp and one third 20 yr.

[Roy Hersh]

The 2005 LBV by Dow was Unfiltered, does it say the same thing with 2006? I ask because, if it does, then it should have had a driven cork. If not, then it really was not created to be cellared. Just curious if they did back-to-back LBV's that were unfiltered, not their norm at Dow, but maybe this will be a more frequent occurence.

[Jim R.]

Roy-Labeled as "unfiltered" and definitely tasted that way. If it had had a proper cork closure it would be very cellar-worthy. This was a 375 ml bottle so hopefully the 750s have a proper cork but I am not holding my breath. Jim

[Rob C.]

I don't have much experience ageing bottles with t-stopper corks, but i have had some of the Croft 04 unfiltered lbvs for a couple of years and they seem to be ageing very nicely despite the t-stopper.

With regard to the 2006 Dow LBV - does anyone know whether the Dow 2006 "Master Blend"-labelled LBV is different from the standard unfiltered Dow 2006 LBV? ("Master Blend" looks like this bottle, regular unfiltered looks like this bottle). Have never quite figured it out....almost as confusing as the Noval 2005 LBV and Quinta do Noval "single vineyard" 2005 LBV which my local Tesco seem to put out on the shelves interchangeably under the same price code!!