1968 Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port

[Peter Gatti]

Roy, when I asked a few years ago whether anyone had ever tasted this and came up blank, you asked me to post when I drank it so here we are...

I brought this to the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Foundation's fundraising fine wine auction to share with our table. Decanted off sediment at 5:30 PM; cork came out almost entirely intact with 2 small (5-6 mm) crumbles- lots of chunky black crusty agglomerate, very little fine sedimentation. Initial aromas of raisin and rose oil, some nuttiness; color was crystalline clear deep dusty-rose pink with lightening rim and very slight greenish amber meniscus.

Initially poured to taste at 8:30 pm, color unchanged, initially shy aromas of mixed nuts, raisins, rose, spice, pepper, fine old furniture wood with a bit of spirit sticking out. Over the next 2.5 hours, the color changed to a deeper tawny rosy brown, losing the pink, and the amber rim widened, losing the green tint, Meanwhile, the aromas deepened and intensified, getting sweeter, deeper and broader, while the spirit receded into the wine as the texture/ viscosity got richer and richer. By the end of the bottle, people were wandering over to other tables, sharing their pours, exclaiming at the subtle intensity, smooth delicacy and flat out deliciousness of the wine.

This was by no means a profound or powerful wine, but it was what we might call in movie terms a minor gem that totally outperformed its parts and provenance. I don't know how Bruce made such a good wine in such a problem vintage, but this bottle was flat out superb, and I'd buy more if I could find any.

I'm sure that part of our pleasure derived from the fact that we had no great expectations and that it performed far beyond our wildest imagination.

Much as I think that it is difficult to put points to a wine when the category is not one with which one is broadly and deeply familiar, my best approximation would be somwhere in the 89-91 point range for absolute quality, especially after 4-5 hours of air, but somewhere around 95 points for pure pleasure.

edited to add scores 4/17

[Andy Velebil]

Peter,

Thanks again for reposting this and sorry about that Great note and I just had this for the first time almost 2 weeks ago. The finish was a little clipped on our bottle but otherwise was holding up well given the vintage. Thanks for posting about it.