For The Love Of Port

"Best of the '80s" FTLOP Vintage Port Retrospective
Holiday Inn Issaquah
1/29/2011

1977 Gould Campbell Vintage Port
served blind

Color: Dark. Purple. Nearly opaque. Looks like a monster.
Nose: Dusty and earthy. Fruits are very faint... nose is almost closed.
Palate: Rich, with mostly purple fruits. Might be a bit lacking in acidity.
Finish: Hot but without the heat, so more of an impression. A little bit of a soap-like note.

Score: 87 points. This was the "ringer" of the 1980 flight and probably would have been easily identified (it was much darker than anything else) had it not been for the 1980 Ferreira which looked like a light tawny of some sort.

Wow, that's a pretty low score for this one. Do you know how long it was decanted for in advance?

I think it was one of Roy's bottles, so however long the decant I'm inclined to believe it was correct. But no, I didn't make a note of the decant time and I don't remember what it was.

I'd heard great things about the '77 GC, but this one just didn't do it for me. The whole tasting was done blind, too, so I just rated what I tasted.

Glenn E. wrote:I think it was one of Roy's bottles, so however long the decant I'm inclined to believe it was correct.

It must have been due to bad provenance

I couldn't resist that one, give the recent thread

To put this all in perspective, it had plenty of time in decanter that night.

I opened one as part of a troika of Ports last night, from the same case as the last bottle. The 1970 Smith Woodhouse and 1967 Dalva Rui Paula were the other two we enjoyed. Cristiano van Zeller was blown away by the 1977 Gould Campbell.

Here was my TN from the bottle that Glenn discussed. Our opinions are divergent on this VP:

1977 ~ Gould Campbell ~ Vintage Port – It wasn’t all that obvious this was the
“ringer” in the flight as the Ferreira’s color fooled most of us. By contrast, the color
of this GC was dark garnet, fully opaque and with no appearance of age on the
meniscus. Seasoned scents of mocha, pine, cinnamon, raspberry and a whiff of
spirit. A stunning VP barely entering its prime, this youthful Gould Campbell
provides purity of grape, a mouth-coating richness and distinctive blackcurrant
flavor. The tannins were lively, firm and chalky and the finish was exceptionally
long, but hotter than I like. Otherwise, this would have deserved an excellent
rating in the 95-96 range. One of the finest 1977 Vintage Ports produced. I’ve
trouble understanding why this never received more respect from Port pundits.
Drink anytime through 2030. My favorite of flight #1. ~ 94+ points ~ 1/29/11