For The Love Of Port

Decant: 1 hour - An emergency decant, tasted after one hour. A short, unbranded cork and a modest amount of sediment of the purple/red grape skin variety. An impenetrable red colour with a purple edge. Nose of dust and blackcurrants. Smooth entry, dry but ripe tannic grip but lots of sweet ripe fruit. Initially nicely balanced but there are some harsh tones in the mid palate although these do soften to let floods of fruit through. The aftertaste is jammy, warming and long lasting, giving a sweet fruit jelly flavour that lasts a long time. While thoroughly enjoyable, if judged as a vintage port I would rank this as a weak example, but one which will probably improve with 10 years to matur ein the bottle so I will give this 1/2.

Three days later, this was still drinking extremely well having opened on the nose and softened on the palate to fully integrate the soft, red fruit with the ripe tannins and no obvious alcohol at all. Very pleasant and worthy of 3 additional points to 88/100. 88 points