For The Love Of Port

Tasted as a blind group of seven 10-Year Tawnies; all opened one hour prior. I had this 6 out of 7.

Deep red brick. Sharp nose-nutmeg and grape. Sharp and tart up front. Clipped clean aftertaste offering grape, raisin and prune.

85 Points

For me, this is the weak spot in Taylor's Port lineup. While I really like the 20 and 40, have only had the 30 a couple of times over the years, the 10 year old is quite pedestrian by comparison.

Taylor 10 yr old tawny is the tawny that has the biggest negative gap between price and quality. Seems like good marketing can sell everything. After having tried so many bottlings of this 10 yrs old I have not had it for quite a while. With this tasting note it will still take a long time before I will try it again.

John M. wrote:Tasted as a blind group of seven 10-Year Tawnies; all opened one hour prior. I had this 6 out of 7.

Was the 10 year-old Graham's part of the group - and how did it fare? I just pick up a bottle of the Graham's but have yet to open it. Mine is a 2012 bottling.

Mahmoud

No Grahams. To date we have done the following:

ROUND 1:
Ramos Pinto
Ferreira
Portal
Kopke
Smith Woodhouse
Sandeman
Croft

Winners, in order, Croft, Portal & Kopke...suspect the Ramos Pinto was flawed (came in last and should have been near the top)

Round 2
Niepoort
Noval
Taylor
Andresen
Morgado
Romaniera
Quarles Harris

Winners, in order, Morgado, Noval, Niepoort

Round 3 is going to be the winners of Rounds 1 & 2 (plus another Ramos Pinto). Of course I could envision a Preliminary Round 3 with Fonseca, Churchill, Warres, Grahams and a few others

John, sounds like a fascinating exercise, please do update the post after you do round 3.

Would love to hear what you and others thought of the Romaneira. For my palate, that is about as good as 10 year old Tawny Port gets. I am also a big fan of Ferreira and Niepoort and then Portal.