April 2007 Virtual Tasting: Get a VP from 1987

[Frederick Blais]

ALright guys, time to start cracking those 87. After 20 years are these wines mature? closed or not interesting. Lets hear your thoughts!

I did pop my Fonseca over the week-end, I'll post my TN soon.

[Frederick Blais]

Fonseca Guimaraens 1987: Fairly deep ruby/grimson color turning tawny on the edge. The nose is quite open right after opening the bottle evolving from fresh field berries to licorice, ripe plums, dried figs and that sweet floral touch that makes me like so much Fonseca. On the palate, the wine is perfectly balanced, smooth, very sweet with low acidity. Flavours of fresh berries, dried figs, some toffey and licorice and the finale of medium lenght is all on fruits and licorice showing little tannins. 17/20

There is everything you want in that mature for my taste port where the tannins are integrated and some young fruits flavours are still showing. For 67$ can, it is a fair price considering the market for that quality for a 20 years old VP.

If I see more bottles, I'll definitively buy more. I did prefer this Fonseca to the 80 and 91 Graham's from the previous VT session and it is much cheaper!

[Alex K.]

Because we were drinking it after midnight on Saturday:

Graham's Malvedos 1987

This was actually the surprise of the night for the majority of us. Easily the lowest priced port on show at about £10 for a half bottle. Medium garnet colour, showing plums on the nose with them returning with cherries in the mouth. Alcohol was not too present so made for lovely, rich, warming Port. Spectacularly easy winner of best value Port and second in the 'Best port that's ready to drink now' category.

[Derek T.]

I agree entirely with KillerB's assessment of the Malvedos 87

We had one other 1987 on the night......

Quinta do Noval Nacional 1987

Disappointing. The wine was cloudy with a strange taste. There were still elements of its power, especially in the texture and the finish, but overall it just didn't do it. A shame as this was the first NN for both Alan and Alex.

Derek

[Todd Pettinger]

I'm excited - I get to participate in my first Virtual Tasting! :) My TN posted in another thread was quite a unique experience. Cristiano van Zeller himself was pouring the Barros de Zellaer Vintage Port - 1987
For this entry I'll include an abbreviated tasting note. You can follow the link to view the full story if you have not seen "A Unique Tasting Experience" already.

-few hours in a decanter may have done this port a better justice, small amounts swirled rigorously in our glasses for 30-45 minutes certainly did a decent job of opening this beauty up.

-fresh, yet mellow nose, hints of blueberries, blackberries and a strong influence of licorice, hint of pipe tobacco, slight presence of a floral aroma, very elegant.

-softer red colour than I have seen in my previous two VPs, thought that it might be approaching a tawny age/colour

-taste yielded fresh berry notes, still young, with a very slight twinge of alcohol, no strong tannins present, and I wrote down "amazing that even freshly decanted, the port is exceptionally mellow and smooth."
-small hint of alcohol present on the back of the palate, not strong and overpowering

-After 30 minutes the alcohol seemed to disappear completely, integrating itself, licorice nose had disappeared, being replaced with a less vibrant fruit nose, smoothness resembled that of a Tawny, but with a youthfulness that reminded me that it was indeed not tawny but a much more fruit-intensive wine.

This port is drinking amazingly well right now. I would feel confident opening 375 or 750s. I also believe that the smoothness has the ability to stick around for at least a decade and may even become finer with greater aging.

I rate this a 7-8 on the Tom scale.
My only complaint is that I had to leave as I was on call and got paged, but not before I purchased a bottle of this exceptional port to open at home. I would like to see the effect that greater decanter time has on the wine.

Todd

[Al B.]

Quinta da Vargellas 1987

I thought I would take the opportunity of this month's virtual tasting to open a bottle of this wine to appreciate at first hand the reputation that this particular vintage is developing on this website. My tasting note and then thoughts are posted below:

Decanted for 9 hours before note taken.

Deep, cherry red colour holding right into the rim. Slightly dusty nose over sweet cherry juice, surprisingly closed after so long in the decanter. A little empty on the entry but then sweet, ripe fruit comes through, wrapped around a hugely acidic core. Slurping just releases more fruit and makes it almost impossible not to swallow. The wine becomes thicker in the mouth as the fruit and acidity makes the mouth water. The aftertaste takes a while to start but comes through as a slightly bitter, cherry-pip type flavour that never really catches focus.

This VP is still young and brooding massively. It should be left for at least another 5-10 years before being visited again. On current form, this is drinking less well than the 1988 and would only rate around the average on Tom's scale, but promises much more for the future - 5/7 or 90/100.

I was a little disappointed by this wine. For drinking today, I would absolutely choose the 1988 Vargellas over the 1987 although in 20-30 years I might feel differently. It showed hints of how it will become a great VP, but it is not yet delivering and is not yet well in balance. If I had to, I would suggest that this wine is still a little closed up, even 20 years after the harvest. With luck, prolonged air time will improve the wine for my next glass tonight.

Alex

[Al B.]

I came back to the Vargellas 1987 a day after my last tasting note. This has improved significantly. The colour has not changed much, if at all but the nose has opened up a little and now offers a lovely plum and blackberry scent. In the mouth the initial impact is of soft, ripe blackberries around an acid core. The flavours become more complex when mixed with air in the mouth and show a nice wood tone and some good, soft tannins. The aftertaste is also much improved and now lasts a good time with a very enjoyable chocolate core.

The morale of the story for me is - don't drink this the same day you decant. I would now rate this as above average for drinking now and clearly a port that's going to be much better in 10 years. 6/7 or 91/100.

Alex

[Tom Archer]

Decanted this one at lunchtime - as I decanted the colour told me "much too young" - which annoys me slightly as I only have one more bottle, and these are hard to source..

First sip was typical full-on Niepoort - there's nothing shy or retiring about this shipper!

Now a glass proper..

Colour is a very youthful red, although the meniscus is clear. Bouquet is a little on the weak side. On the palate this is a tad fiery and very tannic - it IS too young still. The finish, like the bouquet, is a little lacking. Overall though, this is good wine.

Will re-visit tomorrow to score..

Tom

[Tom Archer]

24 hours on and this wine now has an elegant bouquet - but there is too much fire on the palate. The finish is slightly chocolatey - typical of Niepoort.

To score:

For immediate gratification, this wine is simply much too young - at least another decade is needed. The youth and fire count against it, but it is still a little better than average - so a 6.

Where's it going? This has the makings of being superb in old age, but of course, one can never be quite sure. It certainly has some way to go yet. A 9? - possibly, 8 is more certain..

Score: 6-8

Tom

[Al B.]

Back to the Vargellas 1987

I've been away for a couple of days and came back to the remnants of the Vargellas 1987 - roughly 4½ days after decanting. Its actually still pretty good, around 89-90 points in my mind.

Interestingly, the last glass of this wine that I had the night before I left - 2½ days after decanting - the wine was going through a bit of a sulky phase. It clearly wasn't happy and was disjointed and spiritous. Tonight, this same wine is back feeling happy and lively. The fruit is present but the structure is superb with the tannins clear and obvious but not overpowering by any means.

Sorry this is not one of my normal tasting notes, I've been working too hard over the last couple of days to manage one of those, but I thought I would share my observation that this wine was downright surly after 2½ days but has come back into line to be very pleasant again. Interesting!

Alex

[Al B.]

Bought from Sainsbury's in the UK. Had been standing upright on the shelves for at least 10 months before purchase.

Decanted with extreme difficulty due to the sheer, impenetrable glass of the bottle. Nevertheless, decanted relatively cleanly off some fairly solid sludge. A lovely smell of blackberries as the wine went into the funnel. Extremely delicious right from the start, so much so that a glassful disappeared from the decanter in the first hour.

After 10 hours in the decanter, this note was taken. Nose full of plum juice, lifted with a touch of rose perfume and a hint of menthol all backed by a pleasant earthiness. Slightly hollow entry but develops well in the mid-palate. A sharp mintiness (like a mint humbug) sits behind a gentle sensation of stewed plums but the acidity is too dominating. The aftertaste is mild, chocolately and quite long with the tannins only showing in the dark chocolate finish. The alscohol also shows briefly in the finish but is otherwise well integrated. A pleasant wine showing close to the average I would expect of a vintage port but showing the ingredients for some further improvement in the next ten years, perhaps enough improvement to rate slightly above the average VP experience then. Tom scale rating of 5/6 or 89/100.

Interestingly, this wine was actually slightly more enjoyable when quaffed straight after decanting so I am expecting that it will improve with some further time in the decanter.

Alex

PS - drunk again on the Sunday night, 36 hours after decanting, this wine had pulled itself back together and was once again a well structured, fruity and enjoyable VP deserving an improved score of 90/100.

[Tom Archer]

impenetrable glass of the bottle

I'm wondering if in the future, people will refer to the 70's 80's and 90's as 'The dark ages' - the generation of opaque glass bottles.

Taylor Fladgate went back to glass you can see through in the early 90's, and the Sym's seem to be heading the same way - my 2003 Vesuvio is in glass that is just pale enough to level check if you hold it up to the light.

However, this reveals that they have much the same problem as TF with fill levels - I wonder if this is down to modern bottling plant?

To my mind the glass should be pale enough to check the level without undue difficulty, and I would personally be happy to see a return of the dark green glass we saw in the 60's.

I also think the bottle profile should allow for at least 35mm of neck below the cork, and that the original fill level should be no more than 15mm below the cork.

However, I would not advocate more IVDP regulation - just a 'good practice' convention.

I wonder why there is this problem with fill levels..?

Perhaps we have the making of a future question to the trade here...

Tom

[Alex K.]

Quinta do Bomfim 1987

There was a lot of gunge at the bottom along with a few twigs and possibly a fish. Decanting cleared all of this debris. Deep garnet colour and clear, nicely viscous.

Nose is powerfully alcoholic with some basic red fruit tones

In the mouth it's medium hot with acids and tannins prominent as well - dry, as expected. Cherry brandy and some lemon peel. Long finish that gives me grapefruit.

I'd suggest that a few more years might mellow this a bit but it maybe just an astringent Port. Not bad but not what I was in the mood for - annoying that.

[Derek T.]

There was a lot of gunge at the bottom along with a few twigs and possibly a fish.

I think this description should be listed alongside my now patented "coral reef crust" description of a White's of Leicester 1873 8)

Derek