What have you opened this week?

[Eric Menchen]

1992 Fonseca VP, 375ml. Juicy good stuff.

[Eric Ifune]

Ferreira Dona Antonio 20 year old.

[Mike J. W.]

1996 Kopke Colheita which I just purchased the other day at a Spec's outside of Houston. I'm down in TX for the week and I wanted something I could pop and pour while visiting. This is a very nice Colheita. Light orange, fragrant and very tasty. Good price too.

[Andy Velebil]

Dow's 30 Year Tawny Port. The new blend (and new bottle/label) is much better than the old.

[Moses Botbol]

1970 Gonzales Byass VP for turkey day. This is a big, rich, and powerful port that was great finale for the night.

[Eric Ifune]

1978 Krohn Colheita.

[Tom Archer]

1970 Gonzales Byass VP for turkey day. This is a big, rich, and powerful port that was great finale for the night.

This is one of the great QV ports - only a small step behind the T70, both in quality and style, yet typically well under half the price.

Some recent encounters:

Passadouro '92 - Surprisingly light and evolved, both for it's age and the vintage. Good easy quaffing but probably not for old bones. Score 4-4

Dow '63 - early release OB with pink wax capsules. Glorious wine - arguably the best volume '63, still tannic enough to hold out the promise of better things to come. Score 9-10

Noval '60 - had a tough act following the D63 but another great performance from a wine with raw stamina, nowhere near over the hill. Score 8-8

Messias Cachao '70 - slightly sweet on day one, great composure day two. Another first rate performance from a minor shipper of this great vintage, and with loads of life left. Score 6-6

Cabral 1871 - opened pre-sale on behalf of an auctioneer to validate an otherwise poorly identified stash. English bottled, glass and capsule suggesting a late sixties bottling. Cork branding stating 1871 and Cabral only. Content very good. Everything about this bottle is consistent with 1871 Q. Loureiro 'Serafim' Cabral seen (and owned) previously. Although this wine has the elegance of a colheita with half a century of bottle age, it lacks the concentration expected of a wine that was bottled with a century of wood age prior, and there was no greening on the rim. My assumption is that this was a family solera started in 1871 that was wound up and bottled away a century later. Nevertheless, a lovely wine..

[Will W.]

Dow '63 - early release OB with pink wax capsules. Glorious wine - arguably the best volume '63, still tannic enough to hold out the promise of better things to come. Score 9-10

I opened (what turned out to be) a poor bottle of same a month ago. It looked lovely in the glass, though it became apparent on the nose that things were not right: I noted earth, violets and a great deal of aguardente; Her Ladyship described it as "toilet cleaner with fake violet scent." Things went downhill from there - or, to be more precise, the wine went down the sink. 'Twas rather disappointing, as neither of us had tried a Dow's '63 prior to that point. One hopes for better luck in future.

[Roy Hersh]

Last night for local Port Club tasting event:

2007 Romaneira VP - Damn that was good!
1991 Vesuvio VP - best bottle I've ever opened of this Vesuvio year. No bake whatsoever.
1990 Dow's Bomfim - showing better than expectations.
1987 Taylor's Vargellas - again it was very solid although some funk early on the nose that blew off.
1985 Fonseca VP - crappy external bottle, but the insides were v. gd. but not up to the best bottles. Still there were half that gave it 96.
1977 Warre's VP - a great bottle, and still lively.

[Tom Archer]

1991 Vesuvio VP - best bottle I've ever opened of this Vesuvio year. No bake whatsoever.

IIRC The bake problem was confined to to V89 and V90

Curiously, I'll be having my first encounter with V91 since 2012 tomorrow night..

[Moses Botbol]

Had a good weekend of port at home. A bunch of friends came over last night. The weekend line up of ports were:

1966 Graham Vintage
1985 Ferreira Vintage
1985 Graham Vintage
1994 Cockburn Vintage Magnum
2005 Dow LBV

[Andy Velebil]

Graham’s Six Grapes Special Old Vine Edition.

[Glenn E.]

1991 Vesuvio VP - best bottle I've ever opened of this Vesuvio year. No bake whatsoever.

IIRC The bake problem was confined to to V89 and V90

Curiously, I'll be having my first encounter with V91 since 2012 tomorrow night..

In my experience the dividing line has been between 1991 and 1992. 1991 has been baked, at least a little bit, whereas 1992 has always been clean and can rival the 1994 in quality.

As Roy said, this 1991 was pristine and showed no signs of bake whatsoever. Might have been the best bottle I've ever tasted as well.

[Glenn E.]

1976 Krohn Colheita, bottled 2013

A noticeable improvement over the 2006 (or was it 2009?) bottling that I opened a few weeks ago. This bottle was 93-94 points while that previous bottle was 91-92 points (though others thought it was better at the time).

So at least in the case of Krohn I'll agree with Andy and Moses that they should be consumed closer to the bottling date.

[Moses Botbol]

Had a few friends over the house on Saturday for a party, we drank some port finally! Feels like opportunities to drink a few vintages are few and far between in 2019.

[Tom Archer]

Well, tonight's V91 wasn't baked - but was no great star either. Part of a '91 horizontal that depressed rather than enhanced my opinion of this vintage.

WOTN was the Croft followed by Taylor Vargellas and then Q. de la Rosa, but these wines won by default - there were no big stars. I was quite disappointed with the Symington wines, they seem to be fading prematurely to oblivion, Vesuvio included. Noval remains an awkward child, far better than it used to be, but that is saying little. The NN91 is light and clean, but otherwise unimpressive, the palest of them all.

Many of the wines exhibit a dirty earthiness on the palate, a characteristic I've also spotted on N97 and Ch94, so not confined to this vintage, but also not seen prior to it. Some of the evolution of N91 that I've observed over the years hints that this may be transient and evolves toward a cocoa trait, but it really isn't nice. As to cause I've no clear idea, but it ties in with the mass planting of the clonal Touriga Nacional, so that has to be a suspect.

If anyone offers you Cockburn Canais '91, pass on the offer - it was horrid..

[Tom Archer]

Two more recent encounters:

Vargellas '86

The harvest notes on this vintage are perfectly mirrored in this wine: A lightness and dilution reflecting the harvest rain, but then, the saving grace; a clean fresh palate, reflecting the observation that despite the rain, the harvest was not beset by rot.

A really rather elegant little vintage this, with enough tannic strength to last a while longer.

Score 5-5

Guimaraens '68

Here we have an SQ wine from a generally dismissed year, yet if I'd slipped this in to last night's '91 tasting, it would not only have won WOTN but been acclaimed as the darkest and most youthful wine on parade.

I must seek out more '68s - the others are a little elusive.

Score 7-7

[Roy Hersh]

Tom wrote:

WOTN was the Croft followed by Taylor Vargellas and then Q. de la Rosa, but these wines won by default - there were no big stars. I was quite disappointed with the Symington wines, they seem to be fading prematurely to oblivion, Vesuvio included.

Yes, 1991 Croft and also Vargellas are stunning and both have been exceptional since birth. The Croft shows greater depth and the Vargellas shows greater potential for longevity and is quite good too. I had it twice this year, one from my own collection and as part of a vertical when visiting Croft's Roeda this year. Additionally, the Dow's VP from the 1991 vintage has shown to be a solid soldier over the years and I've typically liked the Graham's ... but have not had it in the past couple of years.

As to Vesuvio 1991, I absolutely disagree with Tom and had a fantastic, and still young showing of it only 2 weeks ago. So it sounds like the bottle that Tom had, was "off" in some way -- or poorly stored at some point. We had a bunch of tasters on that Vesuvio and everyone seemed to like it and rate it well. Clean and no bake, then again --I stick with my original assertion (and not Tom's) that the "Douro bake" only was obvious in 1989 and 1990 as he stated. I've found bake in 1991 with several prior bottles. Glenn is correct, at least in examples that I've tasted that 1992 was the first clean version of Vesuvio with every bottle I've consumed. I don't know that I'd equate it in the same realm as 1994, but that was a comment by Glenn. But it is the first vintage of Vesuvio that I believe is worth buying for future consumption, vs. scientific or "horizontal or vertical" tasting fodder. As I've written so many times, the 1994 is the very first vintage where Vesuvio really shows its greatness. I've never felt that way about the 1992, even though I do like it.

One man's opinion. Your mileage may vary.

[Roy Hersh]

This weekend, I opened two VP's:

1987 Souza - the USA version of 1991 Morgan amongst TFP crew.

1985 Graham's - I needed to have a more recent data point and with what turned out to be a six hour decant, this was a beautiful showing of this Vintage Port. Not quite on a par with best bottles of the Fonseca, imo, but still very very good indeed.

[Glenn E.]

Two bottles for my company's holiday party this weekend:

1983 Graham Vintage Port
NV Ferreira 20 Year Old "Dona Antonia" Tawny Port

The latter used to be the Duque de Braganca, but it has been rebranded. I've been told that it is still the same Port, but I have to admit that I don't remember it being as red as this one was in the past. Still excellent, but just not the color I was expecting from a 20 Year Old.

The Graham was outstanding with a ~7-8 hour decant. Along with its younger and older brothers in the 1980 and 1985, one of the best Ports of the 1980s. Phenomenal consistency during a decade in which most others faltered.

This December has been a turning point for me on the 1980s - I've now had several 1980s VPs recently that strike me as almost mature. Until now the top VPs of the decade have felt too young - that they needed time. I don't think any of them have really peaked (despite my comments on the F85 and TV87 during the Sammamish Port Club's holiday party), but they're now reaching a stage where I might start to refer to them as mature VPs. I.e. they're finally reaching that point where I really like them for drinking now, and am not left simply respecting their potential.