1987 Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Decant: 4 hours - The first bottle opened from a half case bought from Jean-Michel Cazes' sale of wines at Christies in 1994.

70% opaque (but the lighting was poor); deep red and with a bricking rim. Red licorice on the nose, with stewed purple damsons - inviting and sweet. Sweet and mature, full of bruised plums and black licorice on the palate. Concentrated - perhaps too concentrated - and powerful. The tannins are almost fully integrated with bruised apple acidity providing a counter-point to the huge, powerful stewed fruit. Bruised apples show again on the aftertaste, and eventually fade to allow an immensely long finish of black licorice to shine through for a full 5 minutes.

Clearly this is unbalanced, but could be suffering from a mid-life crisis (in much the same way as the Taylor 1985 was until recently) but there is such a concentration of sweet fruit that I will hope for a better showing in 5-10 years time. 88 points