For The Love Of Port

8 people @ Chez Hersh for a long day into night into morning of what turned out to be 18 bottles of Vintage Port.

1851 Warre's - mindblowing and the group's typical thought was circa 1960-ish
1896 Dow's - drink fast, the TCA's coming, bummer
1912 Warre's - Elegant while it lasted and my first time trying it
1927 Fonseca - I prefer 1975 Ferreira.
1931 Quinta do Noval - even better than the bottle from 2 weeks ago
1931 Quinta do Noval Nacional - imagine opening a corked one of these? Known to have been purchased from the 2nd owner of this bottle.
1931 " " " " - only at a tasting like this would there be a perfect back up bottle, tonged to show a branded cork no less
1945 Dow's - the weakest link of the '45s @ only 95 points.
1945 Warre's - four scored it exactly the same ... the only ones using ratings. A "wow" wine and I had no idea.
1945 Croft - not as amazing as a bottle at the end of April, yet still enchanting
1945 Taylor - ditto the line above, but that only goes to show how good the other bottle was
1945 Fonseca - why don't I get to drink this more often?
1948 Taylor - much better than the bottle from our warm up session 2 weeks ago, but that was not a very high bar
1948 Fonseca - It was darker than the 1963 Nacional and the best bottle of 1948 Fonseca I've ever tasted
1963 Quinta do Noval Nacional - No words do it justice
1966 Quinta do Noval Nacional - off bottle
1967 Quinta do Noval Nacional - off bottle
1994 Quinta do Noval Nacional - I've said it before and I'll say it again, this Port will become known as the greatest Nacional of all, in future generations.

Epic!

TN's/article in July's newsletter. I am working on our 1983: 30 year Restrospective and Verdelho Velhissima tasting reports for the next two newsletter's Feature Article.

You lucky guys

We want pictures!

What a lineup!

Too bad about the 1966 and 1967, but it seems you had other bottles to drown your sorrows.

V impressive. What a fantastic lineup!

Eric,

Well it was not as bad of a bummer as a corked 1931 Quinta do Noval Nacional and 1896 Dow's VP. The 1966 and especially the 1967 are two Nacionals that I've had a lot of over the years. Until this tasting I had only had the 1931 Nacional and 1896 Dow's once each. The 1966/1967 were definitely NOT corked, just not great. That being said, there was plenty of top notch bottles here to fill lots of hours of consumption. I will be finishing the last glass of the 1994 Nacional tonight in preparation of a fantastic Port tasting in SF tomorrow afternoon, with lots of oldies and plenty of 2011 cask samples too.

Moses,

Some pictures are now on FB, it is just too much of a pain to post photos here, at least for this techno-challenged individual.

Epic is right!

Agreed... Epic! The corked bottles are just are part of the landscape -- it's likely that a few would be tainted

Here's a sneak peak of the lineup!

Darn it, my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail