Decant: 9 hours - I was given one of these, bought from the discount warehouse store Makro, as a birthday present a few days ago. Tasting note below was taken after 9 hours in the decanter.
Substantial sediment in the bottle but being stood upright for two weeks got the wine settled and the crust securely stuck to the bottom of the bottle. Decanted easily out of an "easy to see through" green glass bottle.
Deep red, opaque centre, thinning at the rim. Dusty nose with sweet rhubarb crumble and blackcurrant juice. Sweet into the mouth, with a hint of bitterness that is quite pleasant and well balanced acidity. Fruit builds up in the mid-palate with lots of cherry juice over a hint of tobacco. Superb length with a dominant aftertaste, not one of these wimpy aftertastes you barely notice, this one shouts "I'm here" and you can't miss it. The bitterness, like quinine in tonic water, is pleasant and present all through the aftertatse which goes through a long walnut and dark chocolate development over 2-3 minutes.
This is the second bottle of this wine that I've had and I was just as pleasantly surprised by the quality of the previous one. On Tom's scale, I would put this wine above the median and pretty close to being in the top quartile. Will this wine improve with more bottle age? I don't think so, so I will rate this wine as a surprisingly good (at least against my expectations) 7/7.
91 points
TN: 1989 Warre Quinta da Cavadinha Vintage Port
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