1985 Dow Vintage Port

[Glenn E.]

From day 2 of the 1985 horizontal, 24-25 Jan 2015, Holiday Inn Issaquah. All Ports were tasted blind. Unless otherwise noted, Ports were decanted for ~4 hours the morning of the tasting. The ones that I decanted received ~8 hours of decant overnight and were then stoppered for another ~6 hours until the tasting.

1985 Dow Vintage Port
This is one of the bottles that I decanted on Saturday night.

Color: Medium garnet/brick. Slightly darker than that, but hard to describe.

Nose: Fruity red berries. Sweet but not soft.

Palate: Light tannins and just sort of generically fruity. Mature and possibly declining.

Score: 87 points. I was surprised when this turned out to be the Dow, because I didn't find it dry at all. This also might have been a somewhat oxidized bottle in some way, but even so it was still very good. Just not up to the level I normally expect from a 1985 Dow.