I find it a lot easier to post the un-labeled notes in a thread like this and then break them out into separate tasting note threads once we've done the reveal. So here we go with the notes for the first two days:
Day 1
Bottle #1
Color: inky with a good purple tone. 3/16" fade at the rim.
Nose: very grapey, no alcohol to speak of, lots of purple fruit and some blueberry.
Palate: medium heavy body, mellow purple fruit, nicely sweet and full with fine grain tannins. The fruits are so powerful that the tannins are a bit hard to detect, but they're very much there.
Finish: lots of purple fruit followed by a tannic grip, then eventually some grape stem.
Initial rating: 90-93 points, raised to 91-94 by the end of the evening.
Bottle #2
Color: inky with a ruby-purple tone. 2/16" fade at the rim, making it the most opaque of the group.
Nose: paper/dust/charcoal that's somewhat difficult to identify, a faint minty note, and an impression of tart red fruit
Palate: zowie... this is a tannic beast. The tannins are almost powdery, as if you're drinking a cup of talcum powder. The fruits (that survive the tannins) are red and raw, zesty and tart. There's also some heat.
Finish: tannins and heat are about the only things that survive
Initial rating: 85-88. The tannins are insane so the entire Port seems out of balance.
Bottle #3
Color: inky (are you detecting a pattern?) purple. 3/16" fade at the rim.
Nose: Rose's lime juice, some fragrant alcohol, mulberry/black raspberry, and a very faint sour note. Very nice.
Palate: medium+ body, good grip, fresh purple berries, and a bit of heat.
Finish: purple fruit, some tannins, and then a mixed fruit compote-like note. There's heat throughout and some grape stem at the end.
Initial rating: 89-92.
Bottle #4
Color: inky purple with a 3/16" fade at the rim. Pretty standard for a cask sample.
Nose: needs coaxing to show a mixed bag of mellow red and fresh purple fruits, some fragrant alcohol, and then also some more generic "heat"-like alcohol. The fragrant alcohol might also be called a floral note depending on the person, but to me it seems like it is alcohol-based.
Palate: initially sweet, then some mellow purple fruits. Not as immediately pleasant as Bottle #1, but with more complexity so ultimately probably better.
Finish: quite long, and a nice mixture of fruit, tannins, and heat that fades evenly.
Initial rating: 91-94.
Day 2 - We tasted out of order today at Roy's recommendation so that bottles #1 and #4 could be tasted together, followed by bottles #2 and #3. Roy felt that was how they paired up stylistically. I wasn't so sure about that, but hey the man's got 30+ years of experience on me so who am I to argue?
I'm going to post them in numerical order, though, so that I don't screw 'em up when I move them over to the tasting note forum.Bottle #1
Color: no change
Nose: less grapey than Day 1, some fragrant alcohol, tart/sour purple fruits, but still some blueberries to go with them.
Palate: feels like it has lost body - it's just medium today. All of the fruit, sweetness, and fullness seem lessened or muted as well. The tannins are more evident today, and there's also some acidity now that I didn't notice on Day 1.
Finish: heat, fairly tart red to maybe purple fruits, and some stem. Not as nice as Day 1.
New rating: 89-92. Definitely not as nice today. I struggled with a rating, not quite sure how to deal with the drop off.
Bottle #2
Color: very slightly more fade, but still pretty obviously less than the other three bottles.
Nose: alcohol, dusty paper, a faint sour note, and some tart raspberries. The sour note and the raspberries go hand-in-hand.
Palate: an initial sweetness followed by heat, big grippy tannins, and a pepper-ish note. (a la black pepper, not jalapeno pepper.)
Finish: tannins, dry fruit, and oddly no stem or skin impression. I say oddly, because my experience is that stem/skin is something a Vintage Port will pick up with air time, not something it will lose.
New rating: 88-91. It's significantly better, but still doesn't feel like an epic Port. I toyed with giving it 89-92, but ultimately decided that even though it was significantly improved over Day 1, it still just wasn't quite up to the level of the other three bottles.
Bottle #3
Color: no change
Nose: an odd bird tonight - alcohol, faint green pepper, smoke, something floral (or possibly fragrant alcohol again), and mellow red raspberries. I double-checked the nose later and pulled the same green pepper and smoke, so it wasn't just a passing fancy.
Palate: mellow sweetness, black pepper, the high end of pleasant heat, good grip, and a slight bite.
Finish: tangy fruit, some heat, and some grape skin. Overall pretty mellow and pleasant.
New rating: 89-92. I struggled long and hard with this rating because the Port showed so differently on Day 2. But I eventually decided that it was neither better nor worse, and so deserved the same score.
Note: after doing the ratings and while finishing off the glasses, I noted a distinct note of Chimay beer if I tasted #2 and then immediately tasted #3. There was something about the switch from 2 to 3 that created it, because no other pairing produced the effect.
Bottle #4
Color: no change
Nose: still reticent and in need of encouragement to show. Dusty minerals, some neutral alcohol, purple and black fruits, and maybe a bit of smoke.
Palate: medium+ body which is heavier than Day 1. It's trying to be sweet and mellow, but isn't quite there. Some fresh red fruits are intruding and disrupting the mellow party.
Finish: tart and sour fruits (mostly red and purple), tannins, and grape skin
New rating: 89-92. Another somewhat disappointing showing that just wasn't as nice as Day 1. If offered one bottle from the three with equal ratings (1, 3, 4) I'd probably take 4 by a hair.
