For The Love Of Port

January 2011 I posted info abt. a responsibility I had got related to my local Rotary club. 15 years ago we got a gift of 12 bottles of 1985 Offley Vintage Port in a OWC that could not be opened before May 2011. The event took place Thursday 5th May with 45 members present and the meeting had one topic: Port Wine. I gave a basic introduction to port wine, and then informed more in detail about the 5 bottles of the “warm up”-port wine 2005 Graham´s LBV and the 12 bottles 1985 Offley VP. A total of 17 bottles port on 45 people for a 1.5 hrs meeting resulted in a lively atmosphere towards the end of the meeting. Not one single drop left!

Thanks to a perfect storage of the Offley VP at one member´s wine cellar during the 15 years, the bottles were in perfect condition, except one cork that disappeared into the bottle when I touched it. Based on recommendations from Roy I have purchased The Durand. All of the 11 corks would have been cut 2/3 as it is normal with corks from the 80s when using regular equipment, but with The Durand they all came up in one piece. Fantastic experience. I spent half a day with opening, sieving, decanting, tasting, then back to cleaned bottles before transportation to the place of the event.

Decanted 6 hrs. Very little bottle variations. Every bottle had a huge amount of sediments. So it was necessary to do the sieving three times! Medium dark red with a touch of brown. Aroma of old cellar, oak, sweet red berries and some walnuts. Medium to full body. Powerful, “round”, some caramel, pleasantly strong tannins, quite sweet. Long finish. The fruit was less than hoped for/expected. I would guess that this VP is close to it’s peak. 90 pts.

glad to hear so many people could enjoy the experience and I'm glad to hear the bottles showed well. Good job and I'm sure your presentation was very informative!

Rune, I remember reading the thread that you wrote about these bottles back in January. After the warnings not to get your hopes up too high it sounds like the port showed better than expected. Thanks for posting the results!

Thanks for the nice comments.
From time-to-time I do these port wine presentations.
In order to show them what is happening in the lagares, I included this time a picture from the FTLOP Harvest Tour 2010. Maybe the Forum members will recognize some of the workers on the picture?

Rune EG wrote:Maybe the Forum members will recognize some of the workers on the picture?

Uh.... yeah. I recognize all of us! Quite a lot of Canadians in that picture!