2004 Quinta do Noval LBV Port

[John M.]

Limited nose, red berries, no floral. Decanted 24 hours. Garnet, not purple in the glass, medium viscosity--looks thin for a young LBV.

Taste a bit of blackberry and pepper. Not very complex. Moderate finish. Just seems average at best and considering how its not fruity , I don't think it has much aging potential. I only drank 1/3rd of the bottle--will stick in fridge and save a few days to share with some cousins--will post and update if there's any evolution.

I'm a bit disappointed as the 2001 was very good, the 2003 was good and this is average at best--the wrong direction.

Supplemental Note: Tasted the rest of this 3 days later, not much change in taste or aroma, yet seemed just a little better.

88 points (Fitting to get a pair of "snowmen" on Christmas)

[Lamont Huxley]

John, funny how we seem to drink so many of the same ports. Being that we live fairly close maybe we should share a bottle sometime! It sounds like we basically concur that this was a less than impressive LBV from Noval. Pretty strange considering how good the '03 is. I wonder if anyone else has an opinion on it?

[Roy Hersh]

I drank this over a four day period and found it to be of good quality except it was hot and spirity. I realize that is a big exception, but otherwise I liked the rest of the package.

[John M.]

Lamont--I've noticed our parallel port tasting as well. Would be great to share a bottle with you.

Roy--I read somewhere recently, I think here, that Noval (C. Seeley) bemoaned the fact that LBV is not profitable, hence the emphasis into red wines. Could it be they're giving most of their efforts to the reds momentum?

[Roy Hersh]

John,

Certainly not. While there is in increased emphasis to produce and promote their table wines which began in 2004 too, their bread and butter at Noval has always been Port. That is not going to change anytime soon. That said, I do believe Noval will continue to increase the presence and importance of their table wine program. Nonetheless, I personally doubt that the grapes that went into the LBV that year suffered because they began making DOC wine too.

As an example, one has to look no further than their DOC wine of 2007, it is a delicious red and they actually added to their lineup that year with a Syrah-based wine called Labrador. As good as those table wines are, imho, (here is something I said from the time it was still in cask) the 2007 Quinta do Noval Vintage Port (for me) is the top wine of the entire vintage. Others may disagree with that assessment, but I was the first critic to go on record saying '07 Noval was at the top of the heap and I've had over 70 different VP bottlings from that vintage.

2004 was a much finer year for DOC wines than Port, while 2007 ... both were outstanding, although VP may be better overall. In some ways, (although tough to generalize) I prefer the 2008's vs. the 2007 DOC wines ... which is saying a lot!