For The Love Of Port

Over the last few years I have accumulated several bottles of Taylor-Fladgate 20 and 30 year old tawny (mainly gifts, though I bought two). Most are bottled in 2005, though a couple of are from 2004.

I seem to recall comments about drinking these wines within 2 years of bottling, but is that really necessary? I will need to do some serious tawny drinking if so.

From a port maker point of view, most of the tawnies are bottled ready to drink. What you taste if the bottle is opened in the following months if what the port maker wanted you to taste. Exceptions to that rule have been reported mainly on the site so I'll not dig into this.

But every wine/port evolves/changes in the bottle. It will take some time before we can really say that this tawny is spoiled because of bottle age. It is meant to be drink sooner than later, but again it will just be different. Better or not, it is often a question of taste. I find many loose their freshness and develop more toffee flavours with time.

I don't think you will see any benefit from cellaring a 10, 20, 30, or 40 year tawny. That said, I also doubt they are in danger of going bad anytime soon. I would try to drink them within 5 to 7 years of the bottling date.

Not so much that I thought they would gain from cellaring, but that I have more than I need for short-term consumption. I'm glad they won't just fall over dead.

There is debate whether tawnys will age in bottle. I believe they do, but the question is whether they'll improve. This would be over several years, however, so I agree a few years wait won't make too much difference.