Tasted on 13 October 2005 at the Crusting Pipe, London.
Single glass of wine was poured from a fairly full bottle stored under VacuVin.
In the glass it was still a rich, deep ruby colour with only the faintest hint of brown at the edge - or was I imagining that?
On the nose was the smell of fresh crushed strawberries and peas picked fresh in the rain. A little alcohol came through on the nose, but only if you concentrated and looked for it.
In the mouth was a smooth attack. Very sweet and chocolately, with massive flavours of Christmas cake,spices and raisins soaked in orange juice. The tannins were soft and only became apparent as a peppery kick as the aftertaste dawdled to its conclusion. I timed the length of the aftertaste on my second sip - my lips were still feeling the pepper 50 seconds after I swallowed.
While this wine was beatifully integrated and has many years of life left ahead of it, I was slightly disappointed and can't really say why. It may be as simple as the fact that this wine was much sweeter than I was expecting from a Dow, it may have been that the nose was not as well developed as I would have expected. But the wine was good and I would welcome the chance to drink it again. 91/100.
1970 Dow Vintage Port
Moderators: Glenn E., Roy Hersh, Andy Velebil
Besides Nacional from 1970, I find the Dow comes in around 5th in terms of all Port producers in this vintage. That is darn good IMO.
Ambition driven by passion, rather than money, is as strong an elixir as is Port. http://www.fortheloveofport.com
I was back in the Crusting Pipe the other day and had the chance to carry out an interesting experiment. Despite the glorious weather outside, the Crusting Pipe were still offering a range of Vintage Ports by the glass - including the Dow 1970. Given that I was so impressed with it last time, I decided to have another glass, roughly a year since my last visit to the pub.
One of the things I really like about the Crusting Pipe is that when they decant a bottle of port, they always attach a neck label to the bottle stating the date and time that the port was decanted. So when the barmaid poured my glass of Dow and I took a sniff, the first thing I did after thinking "that smells flat" was to reach out for the bottle and look at the label. The wine had been decanted 39 days ago!!!
So I passed the wineglass back to the barmaid and asked her to smell it. She sniffed and agreed that it was not right and volunteered to decant a fresh bottle. That left me with two glasses for the price of one - one decanted for 39 days and the other decanted for about 2 hours. There are notes on both plus scores using both my scale and Tom's scale.
Dow 1970 - decanted 39 days
Transparent, deep colour with distinct orange / brown tinge. Very subdued nose dominated by alcohol and butterscotch. Sweet into the mouth, pleasant enough but develops some bitterness in the mid-palate, although not enough to be offensive. Bitterness develops into an overripe melon flavour, similar to a tired tawny. Length is respectable and lasts a good time, filling the mouth with pepper from the alcohol, fading into leathery tones.
Even tired as the wine clearly is, it is still acceptable. Would I drink this if offered a glass - certainly! Would I buy a bottle if I knew it would taste like this - probably not. On my scoring, I would rate this wine as it tasted at the time of drinking at 84/100. Using Tom's logic, this wine was below the median but was it one of the 2-3 worst bottles I'm likely to drink this year? Hmm, probably not, but not too far away. Given more time, the wine is only going to fall further apart so I would give this wine on its showing in my glass today a score of 2-1.
Dow 1970 - decanted 2 hours
Transparent appearance, more pink / rose coloured in the rim than the orange of the 39 day wine. Slightly surprising to me was how subdued the wine was on the nose, but with its distinctive nose of bitter cherries with hints of tobacco. A little spirit showing through.
Sweet into the mouth.....a pause.....and then an explosion of fruit, brambles and blackberries with a lovely acidic structure and a distinct chocolate tone. No noticeable tannins.
Long length of chocolate and cream. A lovely wine that was much better than the tired version drunk (deliberately) before this glass. Interesting to note that after drinking this wine, I could not force myself to go back to the remains of the 39 day wine. My score for the Dows 1970 at 2 hours out of the decanter was 92/100 - an excellent wine drinking really well. On Tom's scale, this was certainly above the median so rates 5+, but was not one of my top 2-3 (ie. 5% of what I'm likely to drink this year) bottles in the year so rates less than 10. It might still improve slightly in the bottle, but hard to see how so I will plump for a Tom Score of 7-7.
I also noted that I still can't pick up Dow's reputed dryness, or reduced levels of sweetness compared to other producers.
Alex
One of the things I really like about the Crusting Pipe is that when they decant a bottle of port, they always attach a neck label to the bottle stating the date and time that the port was decanted. So when the barmaid poured my glass of Dow and I took a sniff, the first thing I did after thinking "that smells flat" was to reach out for the bottle and look at the label. The wine had been decanted 39 days ago!!!
So I passed the wineglass back to the barmaid and asked her to smell it. She sniffed and agreed that it was not right and volunteered to decant a fresh bottle. That left me with two glasses for the price of one - one decanted for 39 days and the other decanted for about 2 hours. There are notes on both plus scores using both my scale and Tom's scale.
Dow 1970 - decanted 39 days
Transparent, deep colour with distinct orange / brown tinge. Very subdued nose dominated by alcohol and butterscotch. Sweet into the mouth, pleasant enough but develops some bitterness in the mid-palate, although not enough to be offensive. Bitterness develops into an overripe melon flavour, similar to a tired tawny. Length is respectable and lasts a good time, filling the mouth with pepper from the alcohol, fading into leathery tones.
Even tired as the wine clearly is, it is still acceptable. Would I drink this if offered a glass - certainly! Would I buy a bottle if I knew it would taste like this - probably not. On my scoring, I would rate this wine as it tasted at the time of drinking at 84/100. Using Tom's logic, this wine was below the median but was it one of the 2-3 worst bottles I'm likely to drink this year? Hmm, probably not, but not too far away. Given more time, the wine is only going to fall further apart so I would give this wine on its showing in my glass today a score of 2-1.
Dow 1970 - decanted 2 hours
Transparent appearance, more pink / rose coloured in the rim than the orange of the 39 day wine. Slightly surprising to me was how subdued the wine was on the nose, but with its distinctive nose of bitter cherries with hints of tobacco. A little spirit showing through.
Sweet into the mouth.....a pause.....and then an explosion of fruit, brambles and blackberries with a lovely acidic structure and a distinct chocolate tone. No noticeable tannins.
Long length of chocolate and cream. A lovely wine that was much better than the tired version drunk (deliberately) before this glass. Interesting to note that after drinking this wine, I could not force myself to go back to the remains of the 39 day wine. My score for the Dows 1970 at 2 hours out of the decanter was 92/100 - an excellent wine drinking really well. On Tom's scale, this was certainly above the median so rates 5+, but was not one of my top 2-3 (ie. 5% of what I'm likely to drink this year) bottles in the year so rates less than 10. It might still improve slightly in the bottle, but hard to see how so I will plump for a Tom Score of 7-7.
I also noted that I still can't pick up Dow's reputed dryness, or reduced levels of sweetness compared to other producers.
Alex