For The Love Of Port

This was the next bottle on my death row and has been standing up for some time, a bottle I acquired from a merchant in Ireland who was clearing out his old stocks. The seal was a bit sticky and the bottle had obviously been weeping a bit (the merchant uses his cellars not just for storage but also for corporate entertainment events so it gets a bit warmer down there than is ideal for the wines). I also have a second bottle I bought at the time that is in slightly better condition - ie. no leaking - but would have been stored right alongside the one on death row.

Price for the bottles, approximately £60 each. Perhaps a little on the high side for Noval 1960 but the bottles and I were in the same place at the same time and I also picked up a few other nice bottles in the batch I bought.

I've just opened the Noval 1960 and ... OMG ... the cork is branded AJ Da Silva, Quinta do Noval 1960, NACIONAL.

I shall be drinking well tonight. I'm wandering round the house with a huge smile on my face and there's no guests planned for tonight or tomorrow so it its just me drinking this.



Alex

Oh wow! Now that's good fortune!

Alex,
WOW, what a score

Oooooh nice !
Now that is what you are calling a treat !!

Congrats.

I don't often drink half a bottle of port on my own in an evening, my average is probably 1-2 glasses, but this has gone down such a treat.

I'll post a tasting note tomorrow when I can type a little more quickly and accurately than I can right now.

Alex

That is realy superb I wish I had the luck of the Irish

alex,
so this was a miscue by the port house? a nacional in a regular noval bottle with label?

great fortune my friend!!

dave

Dave raises a good point. This was an unlabelled bottle. The only identification of the port inside the bottle was from a neck label and the cork. The neck label clearly said that it was a Quinta do Noval 1960 and the cork - when read through the neck of the bottle as far as the sealing wax would allow - said the same.

It was only on opening the bottle that the identity of the wine became clear.

Interestingly, this was not bottled in Oporto. There was no IVDP sello over the cork and I suspect that it was actually English bottled. If so, this would be only the second example of a Nacional not bottled in Oporto that I have come across (the other being a Nacional 1931 bottled by Justerini & Brooks).

Alex

Wow Alex, what a great fortune!
Enjoy!

Todd