1950 Cockburn Vintage Port

[Al B.]

This is the last bottle of port that I am going to open before I disappear off for my trip to Portugal. Since Roy keeps threatening us with 2004 barrel samples and 2005 raw barrel samples and 2006 lagare samples I decided to open something with a little more refinement – and something to keep Tom happy since he gets upset when I commit infanticide!

This was a bottle that I came across in an old cellar I was browsing through. Having never tried a wine from 1950, I thought I would rectify this oversight at once.

Plain 2-part moulded bottle. Handwritten label carrying the phrase,
“CKBUR
50”. Black sealing wax had been used to seal the cork, which was recessed into the neck of the bottle. There were signs of seepage, although these could have been from other bottles above this one in the cellar since it had a very good fill into the neck. It was a struggle to get the wax off the top of the bottle and particularly the layer that lay over the top of the cork (port tongs would have been ideal) but eventually the cork could be seen through the clear green glass of the bottle and could be seen to read “Cockburns Vintage 1950, Bottled 1952”. Removed very carefully, the cork came out intact and went into my basket of old corks.

Scent on decanting was dominated by brandy, with a touch of bottle stink. I didn’t decant it cleanly as there muct have been lots of fine sediment stirred up while I was scraping the wax off the top of the bottle and I didn’t give it enough time to settle again.

A tasting note taken immediately.
Distinct very pale brown colour, with a green tinge on the rim and a slight hint of red in the centre. Colour and appearance very reminiscent of a very old madeira. Fusty nose dominated by the alcohol but a swirl brings out sugary and caramel tones.

Harsh and bitter entry, some sweetness but the kind you find in cough sweets. Becomes more pleasant as you slurp to reveal sweet raspberries – I expect this to be very good in a few hours.

Long aftertaste of burnt sugar and black coffee. 79/100 or 1/0.

I will post another note later when the wine has had chance to pull itself together.

[Al B.]

10 hours decanter time
Much darker in colour than the pale caramel when first decanted, now distinctly red but still with the green tinge on the rim. Happily, all the sediment from earlier has now settled out.

The touch of bottle stink has gone. Nose now is of freshly cooked shortbread but with a real wallop of spirit. Entry still bitter and acidic and then come flavours of burnt sugar and toffee. The wine has thickened since the first tasting. On the mid-palate it is now a very pleasant tawny wine. No fruit or tannins to speak of, but lots of enjoyable sugar and butterscotch flavours.

Aftertaste is quite long and with a fiery start but quickly settles down to be a long and warming rainbow of sugar flavours from dark molasses to end with light demerera. This wine now rates at 80/100 or 1/0 on Tom's scale (the logic being that its certainly in the bottom 15% of the VP wines I have tried this year and its not going to get any better).

Overall, I can say that I am glad to have tried this wine, it was an interesting experiment but I would not buy another bottle of Cockburn's 1950 as I am sure there are better wines around for me to use my money on.

[Tom Archer]

'50 is a largely overlooked vintage - I had quite a respectable encounter with a Delaforce earlier this year, and have another Delaforce and a couple of Sandeman's in the cellar.

In my mind I have it logged as 'where the '60's will be in ten year's time', and possibly 'where the '80's will be in thirty year's time'

..perhaps!

Tom

[Richard Henderson]

Not that I can devine all things from several thousand miles away I( I probably could not say much if I were there!) but your description of the cork and the wine makes me wonder if it was stored at one time standing up and at some point the cork dried, shrank a little and damaged the wine. I would think a 56 year old wine stored on its side would have a very soft cork that would be dificult to extract. You describe extracting it intact. I would expect it to be soft and maybe disintegrating.

[Al B.]

Richard,

The cork did come out intact, but did so using a combination of an Ah So and a traditional cork screw ..... and huge amounts of time and care. It was not an easy thing to achieve!

The reason that I was so careful was that I was determined to be able to read the cork branding as I had not ben able to read it through the bottle with enough certainty to be sure of what was inside.

Alex