For The Love Of Port

I found a few bottles of vintage port that I forgot I had; they are on their side in a box in a mud room. They have clearly not been held at optimal temperature. One is a 1963 Fonseca in a heavy lidded gift box; one a 1977 Dow, one a 1970 Warre, and one a 1994 Graham's. Any opintions on whether these are likely to be OK? Should I open, or just put into better storage and hope for the best? Thanks.

Hi Jane,

It is a pleasure to have you join us here on the FTLOP Forum. Welcome aboard and we hope you'll stick around, especially if you really enjoy Port and the other wines we cover here (Madeira and Douro wines).

You have some mighty fine bottles stored in your mud room. Given your location and the types of temps these have likely been subjected to, I'd suggest that you plan to drink ALL of those bottles in this decade. Fortunately, Port is pretty hardy stuff. But the higher storage temperatures during your summers there in MA are so different than what happens in the other seasons, it becomes a temperature fluctuation issue rather than the heat. For prolonged use, this is a true detriment to Port storage ... along with temperature, direct sunlight, too low humidity, vibration etc.

I believe the long windows of drinkability have been significantly shortened and although these wines might still drink quite nicely today, they will never make for old bones. My best advice is to find a good reason this winter to open them one at a time (oldest first) to see how they are doing. Again, if they've been in that mud room during your summers, especially if more than just a year or two ... then you are better to enjoy now than be very disappointed down the road.

I hope others will provide some answers to you as well. Please feel free to chime in here with your comments on these Vintage Ports when you do open them ... and certainly before that as well.

Thanks; it sounds as if all may not be lost (or may, but not for sure). On reading your comment about vibration: these have been moved, too. So I will open them this winter and let you know how they fared. My gut says the Fonseca will still be great...
PS: I am actually in RI, but that state was not a choice on the pull-down menu when I registered (poor little RI, always neglected!), so I chose MA, the closest state, and in fact where the ports were originally purchased. They spent 7 yrs in Philly though, too, so have moved around more than is likely good for them.

Hi Jane,

Welcome to FTLOP, it great to have you here and I hope to hear more from you in the future. Roy already gave the best advice you could get, so I'll just say "Ditto."

BTW, the Warre's is drinking very nicely right now, at least from well stored bottles, but I would say it is at or just past its peak. A much more elegant style than the brawny Fonseca. Don't get me wrong, I love the Fonseca very much. I just wanted to add the previous so when you drink them try to remember the style differences. Happy drinking and please do post about them when you try them.

Thank you for this extra insight; I just may open the Warre's first, and will offer my comments on Tasting Notes when I do.

Jane,

I agree with Andy that the first bottle to consume would be the 1970 Warre which is a good wine but the other 3 are more likely to have held up better.

Honestly, I do not think that moving your bottles from state to state would matter much as long as it wasn't kept in a hot U-haul for a couple of days. Bouncing around during a move is not bad unless you are planning to drink 'em shortly after the move, as with old bottles they'd need about a month to re-settle and even young ones, a few weeks.

The dangerous type of vibrations that I mentioned earlier are the constant type of vibrations, which never lets the Port settle down or the sediment to resolve from a colloidal state.

By the way, how often do you typically drink Port in a year and if you get some new Port, do you have anywhere else in your home that would be better for mid-long term storage?

In answer to your question about how often I drink port: alas, not as often as I used to. Actually, I drink tawnies pretty regularly but it is vintage port that I love and that I drink only sporadically these days, primarily by the (very expensive) glass at restaurants or at friends' houses. In another life, I had a small wine cellar with a pretty good stock of 63's, 66's, 70s, and miscellaneous other vintages, particularly Taylors and Fonsecas, to which I am partial. I always had a bottle decanted, and served them pretty freely to company during the 80s and early 90s. The last case I bought was the 94 Graham of which I have one bottle left, along with the others mentioned previously. I've never quite re-oriented myself from buying cases to buying a single bottle or two. . . I suppose I should.

Jane,

Trust me, this group will have you buying in no time