1996 Ferreira LBV

[Mahmoud Ali]

1996 Ferreira LBV - Bottled 2000 (20%)

I had a bottle of this many years ago when it was a young pup, liked it a lot, saw that it was "traditional" in style since it was bottled after only 4 years, and thought it needed cellaring. So three bottles went in to the cellar. That was over a decade ago.

Tonight we decided to indulge and after a dinner of steak and wine I opened and decanted this bottle to go with some smoked artisan cheese. This was good right from the get-go, inky dark fruit, kirsch, some herbal notes, and no alcoholic heat, lovely in a dark, brooding fashion. This a dry LBV, so dry one would think it was a red wine but for the off-dry dark cherry fruit. It has a herbal, iron-flecked minerality, and dry savoury tannins. This is a very nice, dry, savoury port, a food port if you will. If you like big Aussie shiraz, then this is betterr, it has fruit but instead of being overblown it has dry, savoury aspect after the initial flush of fruit, followed by tannins and a long finish. This would have gone very well with the rare sirloin steaks we had for dinner.

Mahmoud.

[David Spriggs]

Wow! An 18 year old LBV showing well. You've got to love that!