For The Love Of Port

I've got a bottle of port at home which was sold to me with the caveat of "I don't know what it is but I think my granddad said it was Croft 1958".

Can anyone confirm that Croft declared and shipped a 1958 vintage?

Tom - is Croft 1958 one of the wines on that list of all known declarations that you are slowly building up?

Thanks all.

Alex

Dear Alex,

Croft declared classic Vintages in 1950, 54, 55 and 58. No single Quinta Vintages from Croft (Quinta da Roeda) were declared in the 50's.

Is there any information on the caspule?

Cheers

S. Marello

Thanks for the information about Croft declaring in 1958.

Sadly, there is no information on the capsule. It appears to be a bottle that has been rewaxed so my only additional information is likely to be when I pull the cork. That may happen later this week or early next week.

Alex

Alex,
Good luck with the cork. Dont forget to post your Gluing Notes! :)

Alan.

But what kinda glue do you use?

Super glue, that milky white stuff the kids use, wood glue, some secret glue that Derek makes up with left over grape skins from his notebook

Alex,

I don't have either 54 or 58 on my list of Croft vintages, but the fifties are an odd decade, where wines like Sandeman and Offley occasionally turn up for years that don't appear in any published listing..

..if the cork confirms, or FITOC can point me to his data source, I'll add them to the list.

Tom

Tom,

The source is quite reliable. The company I work in, Romariz Vinhos S.A. is part of the Flafgate Partnership, as are Croft, Delaforce, Taylor's and Fonseca.

Cheers

S. Marello

...I'll add them to the list then!

Do you have any vintage listings that you can email or fax to me?

Tom

I'll see what I can do on Monday.

Cheers

Stefano Marello

OK. I opened this bottle at the weekend and (to my mind) it clearly was not a Croft 1958. I have decided what I think it probably was, but thought I would throw out a challenge to everyone else and see what the general consensus was on this wine.

ALEX' GUESS THE WINE COMPETITION

I will offer a modest prize to the person who gets closest to my guess as to what the wine is. The prize will be that we share a bottle of port of my choice from my cellar next time we meet - maybe even the twin to this bottle! You can't say fairer than that now, can you

The bottle was 4 part moulded. The rim at the top of the neck, the two sides of the bottle and the base of the bottle were the four parts. The seams were well integrated. The base of the bottle contained no punt, and has a small serial number stamped into it but the bottle has no other features. The bottle is made of pale brown glass, reminiscent of a sherry bottle, and can be seen through quite easily with a light behind the bottle. The bottle shape is of a perfect cylinder up to the neck but the neck itself bulges out and then back in at the top of the neck. The shape of the neck is similar to bottles of 1945 vintage port that I have seen. It appeared to be a 75 or 70cl bottle. There is no label and no Selos.

The bottle was sealed with black wax, which looked like a rewax. The wax came off easily with the aid of a small hammer and revealed a cork sticking up out of the neck by about 1cm. The top of the cork had a small cardboard circle on it coloured black with the word "PORT" printed on it in white. The cork was removed easily and in one piece with a corkscrew but had no branding whatsoever on it. It was a T shaped cork, made out of a single piece of cork. The 1cm of cork that had been sticking up out of the neck was the top of the T.

The wine was pale brown with a green rim on decanting and was very spirity. There was an extremely small amount of sediment in the bottle and what sediment there was, was extremely fine and passed through my filter very easily.

After 7 hours in the decanter, I took this note:
Very pale colour, almost watery in appearance but beautiful clarity. Distinctly orange at the rim but the colour of deep, dark amber in the centre. The nose was of treacle and figs with the alcohol much more integrated than on decanting. Swirling the wine around the glass also brings the smell of raisins in Canadian Raisin Pie. The wine is thickly textured in the mouth with an initial impact of molasses, sugar and redcurrant jelly. It thickens further, but does not develop much in the mid-palate although eventually there is some spiciness, some juniper berries and a bit too much alcohol.

The aftertaste burns for an instant but then brings a very pleasant series of flavours of brown sugar that fades slowly into mild coffee and eventually into sweet, ripe dates.

This is a pleasant and drinkable wine, but is not a great wine. On Tom's scale, I would guess that this is going to be one of the weakest wines I drink this year, but probably not one of the weakest 5. I also guess that given how old this wine appears to be that it is unlikely that it will deteriorate much over the next 10 years so I score it as 1/1 on Tom's scale or 84/100.

Anyone up for the challenge of trying to guess what this wine might be?

Alex

I would guess that this is a simply tawny port that has been in the bottle for 50+ years. Reasons for my guess are:

>> style/age of bottle
>> T-cork - suggests a " for immediate drinking" style
>> lack of sediment - therefore a filtered wine
>> the word "Port" on the top of the cork

Derek

By "simple tawny port" you mean one with no indication of age?

I won't comment on any of the points you've raised until anyone else who wants to take on the challenge has had the chance to do so.

Alex

Yes, Alex, that is what I meant - although I am now starting to wonder why someone would re-wax a simple tawny. having read your descriptions of colour and texture again can I now claim that "simple tawny" actually means 20 yr old tawny?

Derek

Although there are probably exceptions, the use of brown sherry glass (due to shortages) for vintage port seems to indicate the '45 and '47 vintages.

I have seen some Oporto bottlings from the 1920's that used very pale glass. However, I'm doubtful that this is an Oporto bottling.

Very old UK bottlings of non-vintage port are so rarely seen, it's hard to guess from the colour when it was bottled, but the style of the bottle and the rather rough and ready T stopper suggests to me a bottle from before WWI.

The texture of the wine rules out Derek's 'simple' tawny theory, as the simple (unaged) tawnies are no more viscous that ordinary ports - this wine clearly has some concentration of the sugars, indicating reduction in barrel.

But it hasn't held on too well, which suggests no more than 20 years of age when bottled.

That it just says 'Port' on the top disc suggests a wine at the cheaper end of the spectrum.

So my guess is a 10-20 year old tawny, of no special provenance, bottled in the UK around 100 years ago.

Tom

Ok, I agree with the Tawny idea, next try and have a go at a producer. I am going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that this is a Graham's, down to the general demeanour - rich, thick, sweet, fruity and generally gloopy. Graham's tawnies also have too much alcohol for me and the bottle shape sounds right for an old Graham's.

Humm... I'd have to say that it is probably a 20 year old tawny fron the late 20's. From the description of the cork, the mouthfeel, the apparent reductive nature of aging & the overall appearance of the bottle leads me to that conclusion. I may be wrong.....but that's my guess!

Marc

If I can figure out how, I will post a couple of pictures of the bottle tomorrow so that you can all see what I have been trying to describe.

Also, a further comment that the port (there is still some in my decanter) has become extremely spirity. My experience with tawnies or colheitas is very limited (I've had three bottles in my lifetime) and I don't know if this is normal or not. I thought I had read that tawny ports lasted a week or so after opening - but I guess that being in the bottle for a while may have altered the characteristics of this wine.

Alex

Interesting, I always thought that tawny and colheita lasted longer after opening than the ruby ports.

Has anything else changed significantly - colour, texture, taste?

Derek

Colour and texture have not changed significantly. The taste has changed a little and is now showing more "oxidised" flavours - the brown sugars - and less fruit than before. None of these things surprise me but the spiritiness did.

Alex

I promised some photos of the bottle in question and I've got them loaded onto my PC - but how do I post them here? I've tried to cut and paste but that doesn't seem to work.

I guess that I need to find a website to drop them onto. Time for more research but, for now, you can see the photos by clicking the link below.

Alex

http://photos.orange.co.uk/album/5159124