2006 DR Colheita cask sample

[Glenn E.]

This is the first sample of Port I've ever received directly from a producer! We were told that we were the first to receive the Port outside of the Quinta. Special thanks to Elizabete at DR for sending it!

Oddly enough, the first bottle we opened was corked and it could be smelled quite powerfully on the t-stopper itself. Luckily a second 375 was clean and so that's what we tasted.

2006 DR Colheita

Color: some tawny, some ruby, and medium dark overall. It looks approximately like a fairly fruity 10 year old Tawny Port. There's still plenty of red left with the tawny notes just starting to appear.

Nose: prominent spiciness similar to what you might call Christmas spices, but without the sweeter end of that spectrum (no clove or allspice, for example). Some creamy chocolate that can't quite be called milk chocolate, but also isn't dark chocolate. Also some spiced orange rind like what you might pull out of a batch of mulled wine after cooking.

Palate: creamy with a powdery dry texture. Cherry that tastes like a sweet cherry but is tart, and also some black cherry. There's an after-effect of fairly strong cedar and some faint sweet mint. Possibly chocolate mint. Almost but not quite slurpy - it draws you in for more consideration than that.

Score: 93 points. It grew on me as the night progressed - I started a point lower than that. I sense great potential in this Port and fear only that it has been bottled too soon! The overall impression for me is something between a 10 year old and a 20 year old (which fits, seeing as it is 16 years old) with the fruits of the 10 but power closer to a 20. I'd love to see what another 10 years in wood would create, as for this tawny fan it is not quite tawny enough yet.

[Eric Ifune]

Sounds good!