1991 Dow's Vintage Port

[Kurt Wieneke]

Fairly light garnet color. From the decanter, this gives a wonderful bouquet of plums that fills the room. 1st night: Ripe plums and anise on the nose, followed by similar flavors and a long finish with round tannins. 2nd night: At best tonight. This is a texturally complete Vintage Port with good balance of all elements. 3rd night: Interesting mint sprig note has crept in on the nose. Seems like this is starting to crackup on night 3 and the finish is somewhat disjointed. Did not improve on 4th night. Overall not a great showing for this VP. I'd give 89 pts, just shy of outstanding.

[invinoveritas]

Re: Kurt Weineke's March 6 post on Dow's 1991 VP - I have been going slowly through my case of half bottles overe past 3 years and found considerable bottle variation, however, I have tried only one of my case of full bottles of 1991 - this conforms more to your tasting notes. It is quite enjoyable - quite lovely nose of ripe red>black plums + red flowers, but not quite so fine in mouth. Certainly a good drink, but 1931 or 1963 QdoNoval Nacional, it is not.
invinoveritas 7 March 2010

[Kurt Wieneke]

It is quite enjoyable - quite lovely nose of ripe red>black plums + red flowers, but not quite so fine in mouth.

Invino,
Absolutely agree with your note. You might want to start working your way through that case of 750's as it drinks really well on the first night. There are certainly better 1991's out there; the Croft comes to mind as one which is a high tower in that vintage.

[David M. Bueker]

Sometimes it's nice to have wines that are not monuments. I have a few 1991s which don't tug at my heart strings when I open them. That's really not so bad.

[invinoveritas]

D'accord. Wines really do not have to be "monuments," as you say. There are many such wines that provice great pleasure. We can't all be President, Emperor, or King. Being of lesser rank can still be fun at a lesser cost. Wish more people could accept that.
invinoveritas1