For The Love Of Port

Roy has asked me to cross-post this from my posting on the eBob board, and I am glad to oblige!

"With Roy having woken me up to the glories of port last summer, I now have begun carefully looking to broaden my horizons...as if I needed that

However, on his recommendation, I picked up a bottle of 1976 Kopke Colheita and opened it yesterday for a port-loving friend to celebrate the completion of his doctoral coursework.

Decanted for 7 hours, this has very nice brown sugar, touch of smoke and orangey notes. The palate is real smooth and yet bracing at the same time with more of the orange peel and sparks of what I guess I'd call "excitement" that keeps it lifted on the tongue despite the 20% alcohol. I went back for 2 more tastes! Very good stuff, thanks Roy! C$79 up here."

The Forum needed more participation from Canadians to balance things out. Welcome to FTLOP Mike. Good to see your first post here. There are a number of other participants here who are from the SAQ area and of course lots of others from LCBO Provinces.

Before too long, Andy will be moving this thread to the Tasting Note Forum area. Good to hear that the 1976 Kopke is showing so well. Next visit here, you'll have to try the 1966 Kopke Colheita too!

Don't be a stranger and welcome to FTLOP!


Roy

Hey Mike,

Welcome to FTLOP, glad to have you stop by and join us. Kopke makes some really good Colheita's, jjust too bad I can't find them easily around my area. Thanks for posting the TN...and yes I will move it to the TN section.

Mike, I look forward to reading more from you and hope you will stop by often. Thanks again.

Hi Mike, welcome to FTLOP!

I saw your TN this morning, and then as coincidence would have it there was a bottle available in the wine department of my QFC so I picked it up for $76 US. A quick check of wine-searcher says that's actually a pretty good price, too. Looking forward to pulling the cork!

I was going to post my own TN, but I think the bottle I purchased is off so I'll just comment here.

There's a significant but not quite overpowering amount of VA on the nose. The orange that Mike talked about is still there, and I also detect a faint hint of apricot.

The VA carries over to the palate, sadly, and that's what really gets in the way. I can taste a bit of pecan, but the VA really overpowers everything else. There's a lot of heat, too, which is very odd (to me) for a colheita.

I don't normally decant Tawnies, but it's worth a try with this bottle to see if it solves any of the problems.

Glenn E. wrote: I don't normally decant Tawnies, but it's worth a try with this bottle to see if it solves any of the problems.

Glenn
check out the thread I posted in the Port Forum about decanting colheita's. Please let us know in that thread what your experience is with decanting this Colheita and others

Okay, decanting has helped this considerably. At about 3 hours the VA was starting to fade from the decanter noticably, so I poured myself a glass. I could still taste it, so I brought the glass upstairs and let it sit for a while.

At about 4 hours the VA was gone from the glass and the Port started to show some flavors. It was still pretty closed, though, so I let it sit a while longer.

At 5 hours it's now showing well. There's some orange peel appearing as well as some apricot. It has a silky texture that is nice. The nose still has some VA in it, but it is faint at this point and easily ignored.

The finish is smooth and even, but nothing special.

So... if you end up with an off bottle, decanting might be able to save it!

Just a quick further note - after 24 hours in the decanter nothing has really changed from the +5 hour status. There may be a little more heat in it now than there was at 5 hours, but it's otherwise the same.

I would say you got a bad bottle. A younger colheita like that should not have VA on it.

There was still some left in the decanter last night, which would be roughly 48 hours, and it has continued to mellow for the better. Interestingly (at least to me), at this point it is starting to take on some Madiera-like flavors. I have about a glass left in the decanter which I'll try tonight at +3 days just to see if it has continued to mellow.

Roy Hersh wrote:The Forum needed more participation from Canadians to balance things out. Welcome to FTLOP Mike. Good to see your first post here. There are a number of other participants here who are from the SAQ area and of course lots of others from LCBO Provinces.

Before too long, Andy will be moving this thread to the Tasting Note Forum area. Good to hear that the 1976 Kopke is showing so well. Next visit here, you'll have to try the 1966 Kopke Colheita too!

Don't be a stranger and welcome to FTLOP!


Roy

Roy , I guess you meant LCBO province not LCBO provinces .

Glenn E. wrote:The finish is smooth and even, but nothing special. So... if you end up with an off bottle, decanting might be able to save it!

Hmm... It's too late for the bottle of 1976 Kopke Colheita that I had last month. That bottle was really flat and, in comparison to other glasses of Kopke that I have had, was quite lackluster. In contrast, a bottle of 1976 Porto Rocha Colheita that I popped in late March was one of the best that I have ever experienced! So, because I expected the Kopke to deliver even more, I was sorely disappointed. The bottle of Kopke 40 that I recently opened MORE than made up for the 1976 Kopke's shortcomings, however.