1995 Warre's LBV Port

[Todd Pettinger]

New to my local grocery store’s sister liquor store, is this, the
Warre’s Late Bottled Vintage Port – 1995 [bottled in 1999]
Unfiltered, driven cork. A nice feature of this was a silver foil ‘button’ under the inner plastic cap wrap which indicated “LBV 1995/99.” The cork, when extracted, indicated Warre’s LBV 1995, bottled 1999. I like this “little” thing – if the label were to peel or decay,you’d be able to identify fairly accurately what you were about to open. Only problem is with the use of extremely dark-smoked glass, which would make cork-identification impossible, even with an extremely bright light. Decanted off a very small amount of fine sediment. I have a feeling that this is due to this particular set of bottles just arriving at my local liquor store and not having enough time to recover from their shipping. Two bottles were purchased so as to lay one down for a bit longer term storage.

At first, spirituous in the nose and on the palate. The nose was a bit closed but the palate produced nice medium cherry flavours with plum and tannins in around the mid-palate. Warm alcohol-y burn on the medium-length finish.

Very nice at about 8 hours of decanter time, it took on nuances of raspberries with slight hints of vanilla and all-spice. Some chocolate appeared on the finish. The tannins integrated themselves but provided a good backbone to a solid LBV. Some acidity was present, but not as much as might be needed to carry this particular Port for 15-20 years. The optimal drinking window appeared to be between 7 and 11 hours after opening; after 18 hours the Port became a bit tired with a regressed, closed nose. The fresh fruit was overshadowed by a dusty tone and it was not nearly as good as the first day.

Overall, a solid LBV offering from Warre. While I am not head-over-heals about this one, it is a good example of an unfiltered LBV and based upon the solid tannic structure, should age for between 5 years and a decade nicely. 91 pts.

Todd

(Okay, I've done my part at three unfiltered LBVs this month... someone else's turn!)

This tasting note is one of several related tasting notes. Click [here] to see the original note in context.