1977 Dow's Vintage Port

[Kris Henderson]

12-26-2008
Blind tasting at Roy's, 3 of 8

Medium red. Nice light fruit nose. Alcohol seems well integrated but on the palate it's a bit hot. Medium body, fine grained tannins, low acid, nice bright red fruit with some baking chocolate on the finish.

[Roy Hersh]

Kris,

I don't know if you saw my note in Glenn's TN. On day 3, with Stewart and I drinking this on Sunday night ... it was unquestionably corked. I was absolutely shocked by this.

[David Spriggs]

This port has a high rate of TCA infection. I've had my fair share of these.
-Dave-

[Todd Pettinger]

Kris,

I don't know if you saw my note in Glenn's TN. On day 3, with Stewart and I drinking this on Sunday night ... it was unquestionably corked. I was absolutely shocked by this.

On day three??? And you didn't detect the TCA sooner than that Roy? (I only ask incredulously because I know you have a keen nose as unfortunate as that may be for detecting this particular flaw.

Wow.

[Glenn E.]

Yeah, it's a real mystery. There was absolutely no sign of anything wrong on Friday... all day for that matter, as I tried it a couple of times over the afternoon so I could observe it evolve in the decanter.

It showed well, but not outstandingly well, at the tasting. Even then at roughly +8 hours we had no idea it was tainted.

[Paul David]

This port has a high rate of TCA infection. I've had my fair share of these.
-Dave-

That is good info to know as I have had a bad one recently as well. What do you consider a high rate?

[David Spriggs]

That is good info to know as I have had a bad one recently as well. What do you consider a high rate?

I would say that high is 15% or above of all bottles. This one runs about 20-25% or so from what I've seen. Still that's better than the 1983 Cockburn with is above 50% for me. Some people would say that 15% is normal, but I don't believe that I see 15% of all bottles, or espcially Ports, as being corked. I say that normal is about 5%, and maybe less for Port. Other than 1977's, and some 1983's (such as 1983 Dow's) I rarely have any corked Ports. I don't believe I've ever had a corked 1994 Vesuvio... or any corked 1994 for that matter. The worst year by far is 1977 for me. I know that Roy and I disagree on this, but I believe that some producers have cork issues in 1977:

1977 Dow's - high percentage corked , moderate percetage of leakers.
1977 Taylor - moderate corked percentage, high percetage of leakers
1977 Gould Campbell - high percentage corked.
1977 Warre's - moderate percetage of leakers.

-Dave-

[michael miller]

Very interesting, as I was moving my cellar from one house to another a couple of weeks ago I noticed about half on my 77 Taylors had been leaking. I have not had one in a while. I need to have an emergency tasting.

Michael

[Paul David]

David those are worrisome figures. One of my local friends just had 2 of those bad 83 Cockburns on the same night.....Unfortunately the bad cork issue which started to effect wine in significant numbers during the mid 70's has also effected the port world. There is hope as I have noticed a much smaller number of bad corks over the past year or so at industry tastings -there seems to be more QC with the cork manufacturers -finally.
Looks like the worse days for bad corks will be 70's-90's just the port years I am most likely to be consuming....bummer. The Dow 77 has been on my watch list for wines to stock on if a good buying opportunity presents itself. It is off the list now. Thanks for saving me some $ and anger.