Jonsey Port experiment

[Andy Velebil]

So after some earlier discussion on this board about this inexpensive port from the land-down-under I decided to do a non-scientific experiment. OK, it was really just an excuse to drink port almost every night for the past 10 days (with a couple of skipped days). The bottle was recapped (its a screw cap) after each glass and placed in the refrigerator. For the sake of simplicity I'll keep this thread as short as possible.

10 days ago I first opened a bottle and had a glass. It was the same as earlier reported here, lots of alcohol, looked like motor oil, and needed some air to mellow those tannins. At that point it was a decent $9 port that got a bit better with about 1 hour in the glass.

What surprised the most was that each day it got a bit better than the last day. The alcohol started to SLOWLY blow off, and the fruit started to be a little more pronounced. By the 10th day, last night, the alcohol was still there, but barely noticable, and had finally started to integrate quite nicely. The fruit that had started to come out was still holding about the same level as 3 days earlier.

I can say that this inexpensive port which I thought was a decent QPR port to begin with actually became quite a bit better after being open for about 7 days, much to my surprise. I really did not expect it to change much over that much time.

Is it the 93 pts Parker gave it in his review, NO. But is definitely a decent port given the price. My suggestion though, would be open it, double decant it (back to the bottle), and then put it in the frigerator for at least a few days before drinking. I know sounds like a long time, but trust me this one needs some air exposure.