For The Love Of Port

From a 375 ml bottle.
After an initial decant of 10 hours, there wasn't a whole lot on the nose. There were muted scents of blueberry, cinnamon and black pepper. Initially quite elegant, with berries, plum and sweet spices on the palate with long fine tannins, but still somewhat restrained.
A further 24 hours on in an open decanter, the nose hasn't changed much, but it tastes a little more vibrant. I start to get a little bit of black tea and there is definitely an improved carry through the mid palate as the post just starts to open up.
Add another day and it is starting to look really good. The nose is less muted, and I pick up some black currant to go with the blueberry, plum and black tea. There is much more body to the port at this stage.
4 days in and this is really singing now. More body again and a level of integration that is a step up again, even from 24 hrs earlier, which made me wish I'd opened a bigger bottle.
This is the best young port I've tasted. 96 points

Paul Fountain wrote:This is the best young port I've tasted.

From you Paul, that is high praise! I loved this wine at the pre-release tasting that I had, but I haven't had an opportunity to re-taste. Thanks for the note!

I'm not even sure that I saw it at its best. I'm wondering what would have happened had I left it for another day or two.
There are a few of the big boys that I haven't tasted from 2011 - Grahams, Noval, Dow, Taylor and Niepoort but this was considerably more impressive than any I tried on the harvest tour last year (and none of those were bad wines either) or at home this year.