For The Love Of Port

8) 1963 Fonseca Vintage Port

Drank on 09 October 2008 at The Bell offline. Dark red, with masses of herb and sweet red fruit notes. The lovely semi-sweet fruit, power and long length told me we had a top producer from an excellent vintage. The herbs on the nose and the semi-sweet palate led me to guess 1977 Dow. In fact, nobody guessed correctly. The youthfulness of this Port again was surprising, and the absence of the typical velvet plumy Fonseca fruit profile threw us. Certainly a youthful Port, again chosen for its excellent provenance. Thank you Derek! 95 points.

I've had many fine showings of this in the past year and only one (in Feb. '09) was not absolutely great. This bottle was right on and I had it one point higher than Nicos but we're quibbling over a hair's difference. Stunning when they are this good.