For The Love Of Port

LBV has become so well established that Taylor and Noval are at odds as to who invented it.

But the earliest LBV's were filtered and cold stabilised products that were never intended to bottle age, and would probably disappoint if opened today.

In the early seventies, a few producers began to bottle a simple unfiltered LBV, that was variously marketed as "unfiltered", or (somewhat mischiefously), "traditional".

Are old bottles of unfiltered holding up, or these wines firmly in the buy today, drink tonight club?

I'll let you know next month. I just ordered a 79 warres and taylor lbv.

The oldest LBV I have ever had was a 1961 Dow's. It was in excellent shape in the 1980s -- I honestly can't recall if we opened this in 1981 or 1986 -- but I've not had any since.

Cheers,
Jason

The oldest LBV I've tried was a Guedes 1967, bottled in 1973: a delicious Tawny when I tasted it +/- one year ago!

BTW: I believe the first true LBV made was the Ramos Pinto 1927 - a bottle of which is available in The Netherlands for a mere 800 Euros...but this might have been a one-off.

BTW: I believe the first true LBV made was the Ramos Pinto 1927 - a bottle of which is available in The Netherlands for a mere 800 Euros...but this might have been a one-off.

Standing upright in a cosey warm shop, no less!

I tried a Real Compania Velha (Royal oporto) 1967LBV recently.

I was a bit worried as the producer isn't really the most reliable. But it was one of the best tawnies (sic) probably the best tawny I've ever tried.

I have a bottle of Niepoort LBV 1975 that I bought in a wine shop in Portugal about 6 years ago. Has anyone tasted this?

Next week I take delivery of 2 LBV's from 79, Taylor and Warre, I'll post notes.