1975 Warre Vintage port -- Goodbye to an old friend
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2018 5:11 am
Since the late 1990 when I bought a case of 12 1975 Warre vintage port we have been enjoying this new friend in our house. Always light and easygoing in spite of always living in our totally dark and cool cellar, but now that time is over. Yesterday we discovered that he had turned into a bitter old man 
(fortunately with only 2 bottles left).
Bottle no 1: level slightly lower than normal, but no seepage as such detected. A little mould under the seal, but that normally is of no importance. The cork separated in about half when opening and the lower remainder was disintegrating as a damp mass (why do port producers so often use low-quality corks for a wine supposed to last decades ?!). Decanted, filtered and then tasted. The bouquet was ok, but as the wine had a strange burning bitterness extending very long into the aftertaste, we decided to open and serve the last one instead. We are not talking alcohol or tannins here, but a bitterness recognized from other things purposely or inadvertantly consumed. Not the usual bad cork/TCA taste.
After a night in the refrigerator it recovered somewhat (both cold and at room temperature), fine bouquet, reasonable flavour when ignoring the bitterness, but I would never serve it to any guest.
Bottle no 2: same thing with the disintegrating cork. There were still some notes of bitterness, but to a lesser degree, so we drank the wine, but it definitely was past its prime (85).
It was last tasted in 2016 at a fair quality and there is no obvious reason for this sudden decline in quality.
(fortunately with only 2 bottles left). Bottle no 1: level slightly lower than normal, but no seepage as such detected. A little mould under the seal, but that normally is of no importance. The cork separated in about half when opening and the lower remainder was disintegrating as a damp mass (why do port producers so often use low-quality corks for a wine supposed to last decades ?!). Decanted, filtered and then tasted. The bouquet was ok, but as the wine had a strange burning bitterness extending very long into the aftertaste, we decided to open and serve the last one instead. We are not talking alcohol or tannins here, but a bitterness recognized from other things purposely or inadvertantly consumed. Not the usual bad cork/TCA taste.
After a night in the refrigerator it recovered somewhat (both cold and at room temperature), fine bouquet, reasonable flavour when ignoring the bitterness, but I would never serve it to any guest.
Bottle no 2: same thing with the disintegrating cork. There were still some notes of bitterness, but to a lesser degree, so we drank the wine, but it definitely was past its prime (85).
It was last tasted in 2016 at a fair quality and there is no obvious reason for this sudden decline in quality.