For The Love Of Port

I have a decision to make regarding a vertical. There is not sufficient time to decant all (or really any) of the VPs properly before the tasting starts, so the question is: which sub-optimal service order do I choose?

Decanting will take place at most 1-2 hours before service. There's a decent chance that they'll be decanted pop-and-pour, but more likely an hour-ish before service.

Option A) serve the Ports oldest to youngest. This is our normal practice here in Seattle, because it allows you to taste the older Ports before you palate is ravaged by the bolder, stronger younger Ports. But in this scenario, none of the Ports would receive anything remotely close to a proper decant time - the older Ports would be close to pop-and-pour which rarely works well (at least in my experience for high-end VPs), and the younger Ports would only have maybe 3-4 hours before we get to them. Not enough in either case.

Option B) serve the Ports youngest to oldest. This would serve the younger Ports pretty close to pop-and-pour which sometimes works pretty well, and then we'd get to the older Ports maybe 3-4 hours into the tasting which might be pretty close to correctly decanted for them. The down side, of course, is that we'd be burning out our palates on the young, tannic beasts before getting to the older, often more subtle mature Ports.

Which would you choose?

I would venture to say that the answer here depends on the specific ports.

You could try them all pop & pour yourself before you serve, and then make the decision as to whether you taste that any of them will *need* more air to blow off any unpleasant volatiles, etc. This way you'll also know if the younger ports are too blunt to lead with or not.

If you need to preserve blindness for yourself and this wouldn't work, then go with your experience/gut on the profile. If this is a Ferreira vertical you can probably go with the young ones first more than if you are doing a SW vertical.

It is going to be tough no matter what. My inclination is (A) thinking of a large age range like 1970-present. In this case the palate killing would be large, and that 1970 subtle. But let's say this is a tight vertical of younger wines, like 2011-2021. The palate killing will be less of a factor, and that 2011 might hold up just fine after the younger wines.

I guess I left out some info!

It's a Fonseca vertical, and it's going to span from the early 1960s through the early 2000s. Maybe as far as 2011, but realistically probably only 2003 or 2007.

And as it turns out, we are going to have time to do a more appropriate decant, so now this question is purely theoretical!

My thoughts were similar to Eric's... go with Option A even though that would give nothing the right amount of time. But because we do have 50+ year old Ports alongside 20-ish year old Ports, I was leaning toward getting the best use out of our palates and protecting the older VPs.

Now we'll do that for sure since everything will have time to be decanted properly!

I like oldest to youngest.

Oldest to youngest. Then circle back and do it again with what’s left in glasses.

Sounds fun

I did a Fonseca vertical in 2018 with these vintages: 1963, 1966, 1970, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1992, 1994 & 1997. Some really tasty wines.

My personal favorites were the 77' & 70'. Followed closely by the 66', 92 and 85' respectfully. But really high grades all around. Only the 80 and 83 were a bit lack luster. But that was to be expected

Here were our scoring for the tasting. The wines were served fully open. I am Fonsi #2 in the scoring picture.

That's a very nice line up, Thomas, but I'm surprised that the '66 Fonseca didn't come out on top. It's my favorite VP that I've tasted to date.

Mike J. W. wrote:It's my favorite VP that I've tasted to date.

I think we may change that next week.

F66, F70, F92, F94, and F11 are all real stunners. Even as good as they are, F63, F77, and F85 can't quite keep up. Tough to pick a fav out of those in part because they span such a wide age range.

Glenn E. wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 7:54 am

Mike J. W. wrote:It's my favorite VP that I've tasted to date.

I think we may change that next week.

F66, F70, F92, F94, and F11 are all real stunners. Even as good as they are, F63, F77, and F85 can't quite keep up. Tough to pick a fav out of those in part because they span such a wide age range.

40's or 50's?

Mike J. W. wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 7:13 am That's a very nice line up, Thomas, but I'm surprised that the '66 Fonseca didn't come out on top. It's my favorite VP that I've tasted to date.

Add me to the list for 1966 as my favourite.
1970 was 'mixed' for me. The 'estate bottled' version was solid, but some English bottlings were even better - prompting me to wonder whether time of bottling made a difference (would a Jan 72 bottling differ from a Dec 72 bottling??). I believe Fonseca bottled in March/April.
And (perhaps boasting a little) I'd add 55 as my runner-up to 1966.

Andy Velebil wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 4:57 pmOldest to youngest. Then circle back and do it again with what’s left in glasses.

Agreed.