TN: 1989 Quinta do Vesuvio Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Decant: 9 hours - I came back to this roughly 8½-9½ hours after decanting and it had changed substantially.

By now the colour was much deeper, still the same brick-red but now almost opaque at the centre. The nose had developed into a wonderful mix, blackcurrants coming out first and foremost but still with those dy blackberries in there as well.

However, the biggest change was in the mouth. Before, the wine had had rather a hollow entry. Not any more. Now the initial impact into the mouth was of a raspberry syrup, fruity, not overly sweet and with dusty tannins providing some structure in addition to the acidity. The mid-palate development was wonderful, filling the mouth with many layers of flavour.

There was a very noticeable burst of heat on first swallowing, but this was then followed by a long, loud and very impressive aftertaste.

This particular bottle really surprised me. It showed much better than the bottle we had at Vesuvio in 2005 and the only other review I have seen of this port (before Axel's recent post) was from Linden Wilkie's Vesuvio vertical in late 2004, where this wine was also reviewed quite poorly as "over the hill and falling apart rapidly". This bottle was the opposite. It was a lovely wine, at its peak of maturity and as far as I can tell it is not going to decline any time soon. I don't think it will improve with more time in the bottle but it is showing so well that if it had been served blind to me I would never have picked it as the 1989. Very impressive, just one of my top 15 ports of the year. 9/9.
94 points