1995 Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 7:03 pm
- 1995 Fonseca Porto Guimaraens - Portugal, Douro, Porto (11/22/2007)
According to the label on the bottle, when they decide after two years in cask that the grapes will generate an above average Port, they declare a vintage and bottle it as Fonseca VP. When the wine is not up to that standard, they bottle it as Guimaraens. A bit of unintended honesty! This is average to below average for a top level bottler, which makes it overall a good port but far from a WOW. It has many very good characteristics, including classic port fruit flavor (you would not confuse it with anything else) and secondary vanilla and a bit of roasted nuts. However, there is a very annoying bitterness on the rear palate that leaves an annoying aftertaste. After drinking it, you are left with the aftertaste rather than that warm fuzzy glow you get from drinking a full bodied, well-balanced VP. I have a case of Taylor Quinta de Vargellas 1995 coming that I won at auction, and I hope it is better than this. This was not my bottle, so I can't speak to provenance or storage. It was double decanted to remove sediment at about 1:00 and drunk at about 5:30 after Thanksgiving dinner. If 84 is the high end of just "good" then that's where this belongs. I've had a lot of ports that were much better than this. (84 pts.)
I'm expecting it to be very closed at 10 years though and will likely need at least 12-16 hours of decanting.