For The Love Of Port

Last night some good friends and my brother came over for a dinner at my house. The ocassion was a good friend (Caleb) and his brother (Ian) were down from up north. it was a great time and we enjoyed lots of wines and food. I also opened some Ports for the finish.

1983 Warre's VP:
This was Caleb's birthyear so I thought it would be fun to open a VP from this year for him. Unfortunitly, when I decanted it I thought it was ever so slightly corked. about 4 hours later my fears were realized when it became obvious that it was. Ohh well

1988 Niepoort Colheita (B.1996)
This was the last minute back-up to the Warre's. A decent cohleita but not up to par with other Niepoort Colheita's. A bit thin and flabby and lacking in balance. A good drink but nothing to write home about. 89

1970 Taylors VP:
Wow, a perfect bottle. I posted about this in the Virtual Tasting section so I won't rehash it. But 97 points

here is a list of other wines we drank, including one Douro dry red. I'll post about that later in the Douro Wine section.

2002 Artesa Sauvignon Blanc Reserve
2001 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Riesling Auslese
2004 Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos
1998 M. Chapoutier Châteauneuf-du-Pape Croix de Bois
1997 Ridge Monte Bello
2001 Prats and Symington Douro Chryseia
1996 Château Léoville Poyferré
1948 Charmes-Chambertin, Brossault & Co.

Sorry about the Warre's 1983. At least you had better luck with your Taylor 70 thank I had week before last.

Thanks Richard, I was lucky it was a perfect bottle. Also, I wish I had time to write some detailed notes in it, but I was busy cooking dinner and being the host. But the enjoyment of the evening more than made up for my lack of detailed notes.

Actually it would have been most appropriate to duplicate the '70 Taylor TN here, so we would not have to go searching ... but alas you have enjoyed a number of other great wines too.

I'll make a Christmas Eve "exception" (to satisfy my own curiosity) and ask you for a TN or at least your impression of the 1948 Charmes-Chambertin. I have a '49 Burg recently and wonder how your wine showed?

I have had the '88 Niepoort Colheita only once and was underwhelmed from what I can remember. I don't get all that much pleasure from most recent vintages of Colheita. I much prefer them with significant age ... possibly even more so than vintage Port, which I can find pleasure in, even young.

Unfortunitly, it was DOA, totally undrinkable. My brother described it as being "Sherried", to me it was like a really really bad and undrinkable Madeira

As for the Niepoort. I've had 2 (IIRC) younger Niepoort Colheitas and 2 or 3 older ones. Compared to those, even the young 1994 Colheita which is awsome even now, this one was not very complex or balanced and didn't have that unique Niepoort sexy-spice to it. Now that being said, I scored it 89 because when I compared it to a few other cohleitas, from other producers that are around the same age, this bottle was still better than those. Definitly not one of Niepoort's best, but slightly better than others out there.

It would be interesting to see if there is a more recent bottling of this (this one was bottled in 1996) and compare them....Just for curiosity sake.