2000 Calem Vintage Port

[Roel B]

Time to clean out some ports. Today, Calem 2000 of which I had a single bottle.

Decanted for about two hours.

In the glass, the wine is dark-red with almost no opacity. On closer inspection there is some light-red discoloration near the edges and the wine has a purple tint. This wine looks like it's still in a very early stage of it's development.

On the nose, the smell is very fruity and sweet, with cherries and strawberry's, but also some floral notes and some spices. Alcohol is noticable.

On the palate, the first impression matches with the smell. A moment later, the alcohol becomes noticable, somewhat uncomfortable and hot. The wine is low to medium in both acidity and tanines. Overall it's a bit unwieldy and flat. The aftertaste is pretty short.

Overall: enjoyable, but simple. For EUR 17, that was to be expected.

Score: 14/20

[Andy Velebil]

Roel,

Not a VP seen that often around these parts (FTLOP Tasting Note Database only has 2 other entries for it). Do you think it will get better with more aging or will it be more of a short term drinker?

[Roel B]

Andy,

Yesterday, I would have said: not long. But I'm currently tasting another glass, decanted for over 10 hours. The bottle has been stored in the fridge overnight, using both a wineshield and the vacuvin immediately after opening yesterday.

After the longer decant, the wine seems to have improved and opened up. It's more gentle on the nose - less pronounced alcohol present, and tending towards darker fruit varieties - blackcurrent, blackberry, but with the cherries still present.

It's still a bit plump and low in acidity but looking at the development in the decanter I assume the wine will improve in the bottle over the next few years.

Roel.

[Andy Velebil]

Thanks!