For The Love Of Port

Opened at noon on New Year's Eve for the night's celebration. Oporto bottled and imported by Adventures in Wine.

Initial TN taken from the glass reserved to catch sediment. More to be added later.

1985 Graham Vintage Port

Color: A brilliant ruby stream was poured into the decanter and became a healthy deep garnet. Lots of sediment remained in the bottle.
Nose: Floral grapes and perfumed alcohol give an impression of lilacs. Some tomatoes give it a slight tang. The lilacs are quite strong. Possibly some honeysuckle. Underlying mulberry or other bramble type berry.
Palate: Mellow, round red fruits. Raspberry, but not tart. Sweet strawberry, some light plum. Some tannins, but fading. Good acidity. Tries to present some chocolate, but doesn't quite get there. Medium body, medium sweet.
Finish: The same mellow red fruits with a slightly metallic aftertaste. Good warmth, very good length.

Score: 94 points. Outstanding... might even improve a little more by dinner time (+6 hours).

This was really fabulous right at dinner, so for future reference I'd say that 6-8 hours is about perfect for decant time.

I have to revise the body weight to medium-light, though, as the texture seemed rather watery most of the night. I don't consider that a problem, though, just an additional piece of information. Also turns out that the tannins aren't really fading, but rather just very fine grained. They persisted throughout the night and I full expect the glass or two that survived the party to still have good structure.

It went very nicely with the ham & corn chowder, and REALLY well with the warm chocolate lava cakes with dulce de leche sauce.