For The Love Of Port

One of the flood damaged bottles, recently acquired.

Decanted two hours ago.

Colour is a very pleasant ruby with a slightly tawny edge and clear meniscus. Initial mustiness has blown away to leave a light, fruity and slightly spiritous nose.

Light smooth and fruity on the palate, but lacking finish.

Overall, a refined but rather light wine - good to close a dinner party that has focused on white meat, I would suggest.

Personally, I prefer the Calem '85 previously drunk, but that was (luckily!) an excellent bottle.

I would agree with Roy's opinion of this wine - it is probably past it's peak now.

Tom

Sampled this bottle a couple more times last night, but no noticeable change - a little disappointing, I felt.

Revisited the decanter this lunchtime - some 20 hours after decanting.

The first thing I noticed was a subtle colour change - a hint of purple has entered the fray (this could be down to daylight vs artificial - I will look again this evening)

Bouquet remains the same, but on the palate it is much improved - no longer showing the ravages of age, this is now a succulent and integrated wine in top form.

This seems to be a wine that needs a lot of time to sort itself out - what have others found?

Tom

Now coming to the end of the decanter. Often a time of pleasant surprises, but this one is now looking tired and LBV-esque.

From this experience, if I was presenting this bottle at an evening dinner party, I would decant the night before - rather longer than normal for a wine of this age.

My guess is that this is a wine to drink now, but not as a matter of urgency

Now off to walk the Cornish coastline for three days to get into shape for Christmas at my brother's. Taylor '70 is on the menu.

Tom

Tom,

I have drunk over 12 bottles of Warre's 1977 over the past 5 years. My last bottle was about 10 weeks ago. This is mostly fully mature fro my palate, but drinking beautifully at the moment. I have tried it from a variety of sources showing good provenance.

Cheers,
Nicos

As usual, I agree with Nicos. Our Port palates are very close to one another, even when tasting blind at the same event.

More importantly, whatever time frame is necessary for you to enjoy the bottles you bought of the 1977 Warre's, I am just happy that you are satisfied with the way the "buy" turned out. Bravo!

I had this wine last night and I have to agree with the board, this wine while being very good, was a little under whelming. I have 2 more bottles, and will drink them sooner than later, this is not a wine that will improve over time. BTW, my wife enjoyed the wine more than me. She liked the fact it "wasn't as heavy" as other ports. I took that to mean she likes her port leaner. 90 points.