For The Love Of Port

From a bottle bought from a Berry Brothers sale a couple of months ago. Decanted quite cleanly but the glass of the bottle was very, very dark and difficult to see through. Surprisingly little sediment in the bottle.

Deep rose in colour, no youthfulness in the appearance but colour right into the rim. Pleasant nose of strawberries and grape juice but with a hint of spirit.

Dry entry with an impact of raisins. Dusty mid-palate with bitter cherries and black pepper giving an interesting complexity. Lovely to hold in the mouth and let the flavours develop. Good tannic structure. Long length of bitter chocolate.

Overall, a good wine but nothing spectacular. 91/100

After having tasted a couple of '85s recently that were showing signs of having aged faster than I would have expected, I decided that it was time to revisit this wine. This decanted cleanly off the sediment, although this bottle was also pitch black and impossible to see through.

At the time of taking the tasting note (after 4 hours in the decanter), the wine was a deep centred ruby red, with a slight paling at the rim. The nose was dominated by mint from the alcohol but underneath that was a lovely, dusty, ripe bramble and floral scent. The wine had a dry entry but with plenty of fruit and with huge acidity giving a pleasant bitterness complexity, like adding Angostura Bitters to a cocktail. Good development on the midpalate yielding a nice, creamy back cherry yoghurt sensation. Aftertaste is gentle and subdued, but lasts a fair time as a tannin led bitter chocolate sensation. Overall a reasonable wine that was probably better a couple of hours after taking this note but which was nowhere near as good as the bottle I had in June of this year but I still have the impression that this wine will get much better with time. 3-5.

Late edit
I've just realised that I forgot to add my 100 point score to my previous posting. This bottle of this wine rated an 86 out of 100.