For The Love Of Port

Short cork that came out easily and intact. Nice black fruit smell when decanting. A good dark ruby red colour. First glass immediately on decanting. Nose is quite medicinal. Mouth-feel is light, smooth and fruity then very tannic and dry after a few seconds. Not much heat. Flavour is of black cherry which fades off to a liquorice dry finish. A much more promising start than I expected after reading the 1988 notes.

More tomorrow.....

Derek

+24 Hours

Gorgeous rich fruity smell. The colour is darker than on the previous evening and now seems to have a brownish tint. Much better weight in the mouth now and still very smooth. Lots of black cherry and the dryness of yesterday has softened considerably but still detectable. Good long finish which has retained the licorice taste at the end. No heat to speak of at any stage of either tasting.

This was a very nice SQVP, in fact it was so nice there was nothing left in the decanter to see how it would develop further....

Derek

Derek Turnbull wrote:+24 Hours

This was a very nice SQVP, in fact it was so nice there was nothing left in the decanter to see how it would develop further....

Derek

Good notes, and I see you are warming the engine up for the trip :twisted:

I was given one of these, bought from the discount warehouse store Makro, as a birthday present a few days ago. Tasting note below was taken after 9 hours in the decanter.

Substantial sediment in the bottle but being stood upright for two weeks got the wine settled and the crust securely stuck to the bottom of the bottle. Decanted easily out of an "easy to see through" green glass bottle.

Deep red, opaque centre, thinning at the rim. Dusty nose with sweet rhubarb crumble and blackcurrant juice. Sweet into the mouth, with a hint of bitterness that is quite pleasant and well balanced acidity. Fruit builds up in the mid-palate with lots of cherry juice over a hint of tobacco. Superb length with a dominant aftertaste, not one of these wimpy aftertastes you barely notice, this one shouts "I'm here" and you can't miss it. The bitterness, like quinine in tonic water, is pleasant and present all through the aftertatse which goes through a long walnut and dark chocolate development over 2-3 minutes.

This is the second bottle of this wine that I've had and I was just as pleasantly surprised by the quality of the previous one. For drinking now, I rate this at 91/100. On Tom's scale, I would put this wine above the median and pretty close to being in the top quartile. Will this wine improve with more bottle age? I don't think so, so I will rate this wine as a surprisingly good (at least against my expectations) 7/7.

Alex

Another of Makro's finest. Not so much sediment in this bottle, easy to decant due the bottle glass used - if only all bottles were like this one! Gave off an amazing nose of blueberries as it was decanted.

Deep red, lost the purple of youth but no sign of any browning. A little dusty and spirity on the nose, but lots of lovely raspberry tones. Sweet into the mouth, with lots of fruit. Still very tannic but with some wonderful complexity in the mid palate with at least 5 different layers of flavour developing. A swallow brings a quick burst of heat from the alcohol and then a lovely aftertaste with some enjoyable bitter liquorice tones around which several other fruit and chocolate subtleties fade in an out. This aftertaste lasts a significant time.

On Tom's scale, this is probably at the average of the VP's that I would expect to drink this year. It may get better with a few more years in the bottle, but I am not sure if it will do that enough to move slightly above the median so I will rate this bottle at 5-5. Not as good as the bottle I had in October '06 but then that had had another 6 hours of air time - maybe I need to try and come back to this wine tomorrow morning. 89/100.

Alex

bridgema wrote: maybe I need to try and come back to this wine tomorrow morning

Alex

I like your style Mr Bridgeman 8)

I came back to this wine the following morning and it was very different - and much, much better. The colour was more or less the same, but the nose was just astonishing. It was very sweet and reminded me of the plum cordial that a farm makes close to where we live. Their plum cordial is made by crushing fresh, ripe plums and then heating the juice gently until it concrentrates to about 1/10th of the volume - nothing but thick, sweet plum juice.

That's just what the port smelt like! Fantastic.

In the mouth it was beautifully structured, lots of complexity and a superb chocolate length. Extremely good. 91/100 or 6/7.