NV Heritage 30 Year Old Tawny Port
Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 2:36 pm
The context for this tasting note can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42645
This was the fifth Heritage port consumed at the sitting.
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I have referred elsewhere to my insecurity when it comes to tasting thirty-year-old tawny and white ports. Granted, I know how to (i) open the bottle; (ii) fill the glass; (iii) pour the contents of the glass down my throat; and (iv) repeat until the bottle is empty. The problem lies not with my mechanics; ‘tis a question of all-too-frequent disappointment with that which I am imbibing. My personal curse of the thirty year olds, as I characterise it, struck again during the tasting of this Heritage offering.
Drawn from a bottle filled in 2019, the port presented wonderfully in the glass, offering as it did translucent chestnut hues crowned with a clear rim. The nose was complex, revealing brown sugar, wood, dark chocolate, marjoram and dried goji berry. My goodness, though, one had to work to coax these notes from the glass! A thirty year old ought to be better than that, or so I believe. Happily, the process of addressing the sensations on the mouth proved to be altogether less labour intensive: the brown sugar hit the fore-palate hard, giving way quickly to notes of spice and dried ginger. It was all pleasant enough, though certainly not as complex as the sensations striking the palate during the tasting of the Heritage 20 Year Old Tawny Port. In the event, the long, gentle finish was a delight, starting as it did with the brown sugar, giving way in turn to gentle and pleasing spices – replicating, for all intents and purposes, the wine’s passage over the palate. My overall impression was of a relatively sweet tawny, albeit with a commensurate level of acidity. For those keen to try this port for themselves, the wine is available at Portologia for the sobering price of EUR 95 per bottle.
-91 points
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42645
This was the fifth Heritage port consumed at the sitting.
__________
I have referred elsewhere to my insecurity when it comes to tasting thirty-year-old tawny and white ports. Granted, I know how to (i) open the bottle; (ii) fill the glass; (iii) pour the contents of the glass down my throat; and (iv) repeat until the bottle is empty. The problem lies not with my mechanics; ‘tis a question of all-too-frequent disappointment with that which I am imbibing. My personal curse of the thirty year olds, as I characterise it, struck again during the tasting of this Heritage offering.
Drawn from a bottle filled in 2019, the port presented wonderfully in the glass, offering as it did translucent chestnut hues crowned with a clear rim. The nose was complex, revealing brown sugar, wood, dark chocolate, marjoram and dried goji berry. My goodness, though, one had to work to coax these notes from the glass! A thirty year old ought to be better than that, or so I believe. Happily, the process of addressing the sensations on the mouth proved to be altogether less labour intensive: the brown sugar hit the fore-palate hard, giving way quickly to notes of spice and dried ginger. It was all pleasant enough, though certainly not as complex as the sensations striking the palate during the tasting of the Heritage 20 Year Old Tawny Port. In the event, the long, gentle finish was a delight, starting as it did with the brown sugar, giving way in turn to gentle and pleasing spices – replicating, for all intents and purposes, the wine’s passage over the palate. My overall impression was of a relatively sweet tawny, albeit with a commensurate level of acidity. For those keen to try this port for themselves, the wine is available at Portologia for the sobering price of EUR 95 per bottle.
-91 points