For The Love Of Port

2003 Taylor (Fladgate) Porto Late Bottled Vintage - Portugal, Douro, Porto (12/14/2010)
Taylor Fladgate 2003 Late Bottled Vintage Porto, 20 pabv, versus Dow's 2003 Late Bottled Vintage Porto, 19.5 pabv. Both have a T-cap finish. Neither have a label statement concerning filtering.

The color is blacker and carries to the edge of the Taylor, and there is a small meniscus with an impression of deep purple to within say 2 mm of the glass in the Dow. The former has a thick coating action with slow but narrow tears, while the latter has an even slower tearfall.

Quite forward blackcurrant, beef broth, and vivid sweet cherry for the Taylor nose, with an aura of high overtones; the other has plum-confectionary as the opening attack, undergirded with a definite edge of vanillin oak. I can detect the alcohol as a separate element in the Dow, and perhaps just a touch of heat on the palate; its approach is slower and shyer coming on but a bit more complex.

T: Sweet with a good balancing of juicy acid, noticeably sweeter than the average Taylor early-bottled VP, a neat licorice-dusted blackcurrant fruit. Juicy is an appropriate word for this wine: vivid and attractive, with nice middle-weight and ripe tannin extract, which would help with most of the VP-directed food matches.

D: A bit more stylistically true to its heritage when considering both sweetness (more restrained) and tannins (somewhat forward and chalky, but quite acceptable). Though it's shy there's good length.

Both of these wines will exploit the usual decanter window of 3-4 weeks and give their all; there's little to be gained by extensive cellaring, but no hurry either. For their fresh fruitiness drink now-2012. There is little to be chosen between the two as far as quality goes; they are both 88-89 pointers. I'd give the Dow's the edge for typicity, but the Taylor's has a nice intense fruitiness that is hard not to love. (89 pts.)

Normally I do not make comments on people's scoring of wines here ... but for the 2003 Taylor's which many here agree is their best effort in years with LBV, I have yet to see anyone score below 90 points. Just sayin' ... but otherwise, a very sound TN, however, both of these Ports will drink well further than 2012 too. I've had both in November and that is just my FWIW.

Roy Hersh wrote:Normally I do not make comments on people's scoring of wines here ... but for the 2003 Taylor's which many here agree is their best effort in years with LBV, I have yet to see anyone score below 90 points. Just sayin' ... but otherwise, a very sound TN, however, both of these Ports will drink well further than 2012 too. I've had both in November and that is just my :twocents: FWIW.

Just my bias, Roy, I think, not to score too highly those wines that I don't think will improve too much with cellaring and are best consumed where they are, at their peak. But hey, I'll give each one of them an extra point, no sweat--they could have gone either way.

It's strange how important that one point from 89 to 90 is--Even RP admits that he frequently gives a bump to 89 point wines, instead scoring them 90, that he thinks are 'worthy of more attention from the marketplace', whatever THAT has to do with quality. If you do a nomogram on his scores there's a big bump at 90 that is completely off what you'd expect the curve to be there.

As to the drinking window, I guess you can have that too, depending on how much you like lush fresh fruit. Both of these wines are so attractive now for that quality that I would drink them before maybe 2 years has gone by, because they are such beauties. Even the Dow's on the second day really popped with additional fruit.

John,

Just adding some discussion points, not being "critical" of your scoring!

Agreed that LBV almost across the board blanket statement ... that LBV Ports are better on day two and three than the day they are opened. Sounds like a good topic for a thread that I will start in a moment in Port Basics.