1938 Rocha Colheita Port -- bottled 1998

[Peter Gatti]

From a 375 ml, accompanying middle-eastern pastries, after a long, leisurely middle-eastern dinner during which we also consumed 85 Bollinger, 86 and 94 Henschke Hill of Grace, 77 Mount Eden Cabernet and 64 Lafite.

Beautiful pale tawny color, verging on rose-gold;

Slight heat on the nose which dissipated with further aeration, with a brilliant kaleidoscope of aromas including nuts, warm marmalade, attar of roses, cinnamon, spices, figs, dates, carmelized fruits, old leather.

Palate followed aromas, with added flavors of anise, frankincense/rosemary (!?), brown sugar/treacle.

Long doesn't do justice to the finish. I've tasted this three times since the release of this batch in the Austin market in 1999, and this was the finest bottle yet.

This is probably not the best 1938 colheita out there, but d**n it's good...
and worth looking for, IMHO

[Otto Nieminen]

Thanks for the note. Just out of curiosity, what sort of pastries did you have the port with - baklawa? Did the pairing work ok? My guess is that with some of the less sweet types of baklawa, port would indeed go well! Thanks for putting this idea to my head.

Otto

[Peter Gatti]

Otto, I wish that I could remember the names of the individual items...what I can tell you is that it was the assortment sold under the "Shatila" brand, originally (and still, AFAIK) produced at the refugee camp, but now also produced under license in the Arab community in Detroit, Michigan. At any rate, we did, in fact have a not-too-sweet baklava, as well as date pastry, the hazel-nut-paste filled horns, a couple of different pistachio concoctions, and the honey-drenched coarse wheat 'nests' that resemble small circular shredded wheat biscuits. All in all, pretty yummy combinations.