For The Love Of Port

FTLOP 4th Anniversary party
Holiday Inn, Issaquah, July 30th 2009

1. 1937 Warre Reserve Tawny (Colheita) bottled 1997
2. 1963 Niepoort Colheita bottled 1986
3. 1966 Porto Rocha Colheita bottled 1997
4. 1968 Quevedo Garrafeira Particular (Colheita) bottled 1999
5. 1963 Croft Vintage Port
6. 1963 Warre Vintage Port
7. 1966 Dow Vintage Port
8. 1967 Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port

1968 Quevedo Garrafeira Particular (Colheita)
bottled in 1999

Color: Cloudy, but still a lot of red. Oscar explained that this Port had been aged in a much larger 1000 liter cask (vs the normal 550 liter) which is probably what allowed it to retain so much more color than you would normally expect of a 41-yr old Colheita.
Nose: Raw leather, weathered wood roof beams, root beer, and possibly rhubarb. Caramel macchiato. Doused campfire (wet burnt wood).
Palate: Mold and very ripe red fruits, perhaps even fermenting red fruits. Faint grip - it still has tannins. Very nice texture, but strange for a colheita (again probably due to the large aging barrel). Nice mellow sweetness. Some grapey spirit. Several secondary fruit flavors that you'd normally associate with Vintage Port. Paired very well with the aged gouda.
Finish: Pleasant, medium length, with just a few tannins left. The tail end tried to form some green apple notes, but there just weren't quite enough tannins left to pull it off. But that would have been quite a feat for a Colheita anyway.

Score: 95. As I recall, this got the other two 1st place votes for WOTN and was my #2 (along with several others). I have to admit that while the 1937 Warre was (at least to me) pretty clearly a better Colheita, this one was in some ways more enjoyable. I commented that had it been served blind along with 3 obvious Colheitas and 4 obvious Vintage Ports, I probably would have guessed that this was a Garrafeira and not a Colheita. I've never actually had a Garrafeira, but the merging of tawny and ruby flavor notes that showed in this bottle is was I always think a Garrafeira would taste like.

An excellent bottle of Port. Thank you very much, Oscar, for sharing it with us!

Very interesting. As I was born in 1968 I'm of course compelled to seek this out. Certainly I'm not going to find this here in the US. Can it be bought anywhere, like at Quevedo?

Sadly, no. They have never sold any bottles of this, and Oscar said that they probably never will. It is something that they use for family activities, and also occasionally for tastings when a family member is present.

Thanks for the TN. I also loved this wine that was generously opened for us when we visited Quevedo. I believe I gave it 95 or 96 points. Certainly it was one of the top wines of the entire Fortification tour!
-Dave-

Love this bottle and wish it was for sale so I could buy a bunch...oh well, that just means i need to head to Portugal more often

I had two bottles of this on back to back days and of course when visiting the property as well. This was the best showing of the three. Although I initially voted this my POTN, that changed when later on the 1937 came on strong and improved quite a bit.

I still loved this and found it in the same scoring range. Thanks again Oscar, it was a pleasure to taste and the previous day against the other '68 Colheita ... I know the Sommelier group really love that educational pairing!

Thx!

I really happy to know that you had enjoyed this Port from my grandpa's private barrel.

Eric Menchen wrote:Very interesting. As I was born in 1968 I'm of course compelled to seek this out. Certainly I'm not going to find this here in the US. Can it be bought anywhere, like at Quevedo?

Eric, as Glen said, we don't have this Port for sale. But if you come to the Douro during the next years, I think I can give you to taste our 1968. There are very few wines from 1968 and I can imagine it is probably difficult for you to find one.