For The Love Of Port

OK, I have a problem. My ports have been tasting differently from one drinking session to the next. For example, I complained in a previous post that the "rancio"/tangy taste in some of my Australian ports comes and goes. Well, today I got the Niepoort 10 yr tawny that was suggested in another thread. When I first tried it, I thought it was rather mellow and did not have a strong aftertaste, nor an alchoholic burn. Thus I thought it was very different than my Pocas 10 yr tawny. To be sure, I tried the Pocas Tawny next, and it was also mellow without a strong aftertaste! WTF. That's not what I remember it as. I remember having to pause after each sip because it was so strong.

In my case, I really only drink ports after dinner (I think that might have something to do with it), and later into the evening. How do you guys cleanse or recalibrate your taste buds so that you can rate wines consistently?

There's not much you can learn about this other than by drinking a lot of port

The shippers individual styles will gradually beome familiar, and you will probably notice some subtle recurrant characteristics from certain years.

These traits are often difficult to describe - if you try to analyse the ludicrous descriptions trotted out by the likes of Robert Parker and his cronies, you will get absolutely nowhere!

Tom

One that is always good to remember is that no bottle is identical. The famous quote "there is no great wine, only great bottle" is very accurate. Appart from that, a lot of things influence your tasting, psychological, physical influences and eaven the weather.

Then why would a bottle of Pocas taste different now than it was 2 days ago. It was probably from the same bottle and 2 days later the same wine as evolved. The oxygen is joining with the wine molecules to produces new ones, changing the flavours and color in the process. Normally in a Tawny the acidity drops and the sugar feeling rise, in my experience, after a few days it is opened.

To develop a good palate, one thing of course that is needed is to drink a lot. Another one really important if you want to recognize flavours in your wine is to pay attention and to smell everything that come close to you. This is why, often, women are better at that then men, they are used to smell all these flavours when they cook. Tasting with friends and sharing your experience is another good way to learn fast, writing what you taste helps to strenthen your memory. The more senses you use, the most it will help you to build a good tasting memory.

Alan,

If you are mainly drinking port after food then it is certain that the food you eat will affect your perception of the port. I find that the only way for me to get a "clean" tasting is to just drink port without eating or drinking any other alchoholic drink immediately beforehand. If you do want to continue eating/drinking and then tasting port then drink lots of water and eat some dry biscuits before moving on to the port.

Derek

My experience has been that Australian tawnies, once opened, tend to go on the decline. However, Portuguese tawnies (and ports for that matter) do not decline necessarily after opening and can sometimes show improvement and mellowing over a week or so. The portuguese tawnies and port are much hardier wines. Sometime they can taste hard and alcoholic when first opened, but then blossom wonderfully after several days.

Some other good calibrators would be dark chocolate for a VP, or a combination of cashews and dried cherries for a tawny.

Alan,

One thing that I noticed in another posting you made, was that you mentioned that you might have up to half a dozen bottles open at any one time.

There is a chance that what you are experiencing is what Fred has suggested - that the wines are evolving and oxidising from the time being opened to the time you finish the bottle.

With Madeira, this evolution is very slow. Madeira will last months in the bottle without degrading in character, although it will change in subtle ways.

Portuguese ports will change more rapidly. Late Bottled Vintage and Ruby ports will last a week or more. Vintage Ports will last up to a few days, depending on the way you like your Vintage Port to taste.

Tawnies will last a week or two, more if you keep the wine in the fridge to slow down the oxidation process.

Elswhere on the port forum, you will see tasting notes posted by people who have tasted their ports over an extended period and you can see the way that they have seen their wines change. Have you tried to look for a correlation between the amount of time the bottle has been opened and the "bitter taste" that you dislike in certain wines?

Alex

Thanks for the suggestions, everybody. In fact, this has not been a good port tasting week for me. The weather is hot, allergy season is upon me, and I burned my tongue eating pot pie. Anyway, after a day of "rest", I did some more tasting today. Some of the alcoholic burn and aftertaste of the Porto Pocas Tawny came back, although still not as strong as I remember initially.

I had a very weird experience with my Yalumba antique Tawny (1 week old). Within the first few days I had it, I thought it smelled like burnt coffee grounds, although my wine buddy said it smelled like rye. Today, it smelled like rye to me as well. Before, I thought it tasted not too different from my Whiskers Blake, albeit a bit stronger. Today, it tasted really concentrated, with a strong spiciness, like when you grind up dried seeds, like fennel, or the seeds you get at the door at some Indian restaurants. When I left it on my tongue for a few seconds, I got this sensation of extreme saltiness. Brrr, I had to drink some water afterwards.

At least I have relatively consistent tasting experiences with ruby ports. They usually have some combination of sweetness, fruitiness, grape, berries, jam, etc.

To answer some of the other comments made:

I keep my ports in a wine cooler set somewhere in the mid-lower 50's F.

I did notice in the reading I have been doing that wines change in taste a little bit over time. In fact, I am kind of surprised with the treatment of vintage ports. Am I correct in understanding that some of you leave it out, open to air, for 12 hours or more?

I agree that with my Buller's Muscat that it seemed to get a little sweeter and less acidic after about 2-3 weeks, but I did not notice this in the Whiskers Blake, even after ~1 month. Its "tanginess" did not seem to diminish. The Porto Pocas has been opened for maybe 6 or more weeks now, and I did not notice the loss of aftertaste and strength until approx last week. The Blackstone ruby port has been opened maybe 3 weeks now, and if the taste has changed at all, it has become more "portugese-like", with a bit less jam taste and more of a dark grape flavor.

I did stock up on some nuts, dried cherries, crackers, etc.

It might also be that my tolerance to alcohol is increasing.

Alan

Its true, I will often leave my vintage port out open to the air in a decanter for 3-4 days before it is finished. It certainly changes over that time and - to my palate - is at its best sometime between 6 hours and 30 hours, depending on the particular wine and its age.

Alex

Update: I brought the Yalumba to have my wine buddy taste it again. He thought it was very good and tasted like butterscotch. He suspected that I was confusing the small amount of saltiness in butterscotch to the sensation of saltiness. Anyway, it tasted fine to me this time, e.g. the vile taste of ground up seed spices and saltiness were gone. I don't know what was wrong with me to have tasted this so differently. Shrug.

Update 2: I was right to notice that the Niepoort 10 yr seemed rather mellow. My wine buddy said that it was corked/oxidised. That sux coz I paid nearly $30 for that bottle.