For The Love Of Port

2 hrs decanting. Medium dark red with a touch of brown. Slightly oxidized. Rather complex aroma of various types of fruit. Medium body. Still some fruit in the taste, but this bottle was on the way to go out of balance. Medium length aftertaste. Barely drinkable 78 pts.

Wow, I've had this a few times and have had much better experiences. I assume it was a faulty bottle in some way?

I have also tasted a few of the 1996 LBV in good condition, amongst others at Crasto.
However, we brought two half bottles back from Portugal, and they appeared to be equal in scores.
Hopefully they were just bad bottles.

Definitely bad bottles. I had a six pack of these in 750 and the one's I've opened so far, were all much different than what you described. None had the color issues or premature decline.