For The Love Of Port

I hosted a Port tasting for a group of friends from university a few days ago. The theme was simple: bring a bottle of Port! An eclectic mix of bottles was the result: some nice, some disappointing, some corked…but a fun evening it was. Apart from the Madeira, all wines were served non-blind, and only the Dow, Heredias and d’Arenberg were decanted. The wines, in order of tasting:

Senhora do Convento NV 10 Year Old Tawny – bottled in 2003. Orange / red colour, a bit cloudy. Nice nose, if somewhat light. Thick bodied, with a creamy mouthfeel. Somewhat diluted as well: the amount of flavours (nice caramel and citrus, apple syrup) do not match with the structure of this wine. Boring finish, hot and short. 78

Kopke 1986 Colheita – bottled in 2005. Rather brown. Quite fresh on the nose, with a whiff of VA. Medium bodied, hot and very sweet with overripe if not rotten fruit. Weak finish, but with a nice chocolate touch to it. 76
I’ve had the Kopke ’86 a few times now from several different bottlings, but have yet to be impressed. A year to avoid for this otherwise solid producer of Colheita, IMHO.

Churchill 1994 LBV – bottled in 1999, and poured from magnum. Corked. Curses!

Kopke 1998 LBV – bottled in 2003. Mature in both the appearance as on the nose: dried fruits, dades, fresh, but a bit alcoholic as well. Thin to medium bodied, with an odd apple touch. Bitter and hot finish. Yet another disappointing Kopke LBV. 76

Fonseca 1999 LBV – bottled in 2004. Good colour, still surprisingly dark. Wow, that nose! Alcoholic beyond believe, it made my eyes water. Thin bodied, but with loads of coarse tannins – not a good balance. Not as hot as other Fonseca LBVs. The palate is mostly about red cherry, but keep it longer in the mouth and distracting green stem flavours emerge. Smooth, nice finish though. Not a masterpiece, but as an LBV to drink instead of analyse, nice enough. 79

Graham’s NV Crusted Port – bottled in 2000. Corked. More curses!

Dow’s 1995 Qta. d. Bomfim VP – This should have been decanted a bit longer, as it was still somewhat closed. Nice fruity nose, that seems to continue on the palate. One of the sweeter Bomfims. Well-integrated tannins. Long, warm finish. Obviously very young, but enjoyable as well. 91

Heredias 1997 VP – This VP had a great nose upon decanting, but when this was poured it had closed up completely. Well structured, fresh, fine tannins, smooth. On the sweet side. Very accessible already. Not very complex, but a Port with everything in the right place. 88
After some feeble LBVs from this producer, this VP was a very nice surprise, especially considering its 23 Euro price! As an aside, this Heredias hails from the same company as Senhora do Convento, and I believe the name Heredias will be (or is) phased out…does anyone have more info about this?

Qta. d. Ventozelo 2000 VP – Corked. Even more curses!

D’Arenberg 1999 Vintage Fortified Shiraz (McLaren Vale) – Loads and loads of cassis on both the nose and the palate. The nose has some eucalyptus as well. A nice fruit-forward fortified wine, but its pleasure is diminished a bit by an artificial sweet, bubblegum flavour. Fine tannins, sweet finish. 86

D’Oliveira 1900 Malvazia Reserva (Madeira) – I had two glasses left of this Madeira, which I had opened a few months ago. I poured it blind for the others. I think I turned some people on to Madeira with this wine…and I enjoyed it tremendously as well.

Qta. d. Javali 2001 LBV – bottled in 2005. I won’t provide a TN, as Ronnie and I are the Dutch importer of this LBV…but the fact that we finished close to three bottles of this LBV leads me to believe that the other like it quite a bit…

Steven,

So, two of your first six wines were corked and the other 4 were under 80 pts. I think I would have shot myself or left the tasting.

Then with all 12 tasted, 3 corked Ports. Santa might not have thought you were a good boy this year! 25% is horrendous. I was at a tasting of Vintage Ports where we had the same ratio and I was not a happy camper, although my bottle showed great. Still it was horrendous.

Mario and I met with the owner/winemaker of Javali in Portugal and tasted a handful of his wines. We both like discovering new producers and in my 2003 VP Forecast, there were new producers that were not reviewed by any other journalist outside of Portugal.

Nice job with that d'Oliveira 1900 Malvazia. Great juice for sure!

Roy, do you plan to publish your TN's on the Javali wines?

Roy Hersh wrote:Steven,

So, two of your first six wines were corked and the other 4 were under 80 pts. I think I would have shot myself or left the tasting.

Well, as this tasting to place at my home, leaving wasn't an option...and I did not commit hari-kiri as I do have some nice Ports left in the cellar that I intend to try before I go!

Seriously, it was a fun evening - due to the company. Besides, those attending were mostly Port novices, and they enjoyed the wines much more than I did. But those three corked bottles were indeed a major bummer.

And the Bomfim and Heredias were certainly worth it. I enjoyed retasting the Bomfim. Heredias was a very pleasant surprise.

Steven, Ronald, and other dutchies

if you want to set up a off-line tasting somewhere in the Netherlands, let me know. I would be happy to attend this meeting. Ofcourse i'll bring some ports with me aswell

Cheers
Erik

Will do, Erik! Would be nice to share a bottle (or two, or three...) together.