For The Love Of Port

Of course this can not be too specific as each Port must be judged on its own merits and varies greatly by producer and vintage.

Nonetheless, what do you feel is the perfect aging point of a Vintage Port for where you really like to drink them?

As old as it can go with still showing a touch of grape. Aged, but slightly juicy still. I have had ports 100 years old (1908 Grahams) or 1980's ports ('83 Grahams) that both fit this description, so the number of years in the bottle doesn't really satisfy an answer.

Personally, I like to wait 20 years to open a vintage...

I think Moses nailed it. It's not really about age, it's about maturity.

For a top-tier VP I think I need at least 40 years, and preferably 50, before I'll call it ready. This year's Port Gala really demonstrated that to me very clearly because for my taste even the 1966s weren't quite ready yet. I thought the 1960 Taylor was in its prime, though, and the 1947 Noval was spectacular.

Lesser VPs need less time. I've never had one that I'd call fully and properly mature at 20-25 years, but I see no reason why it would not be possible. (I'll have to hunt down an '83 Grahams!) My general rule of thumb so far says that 30 years is about the right point to start testing them.

At the 1st Annual Gala I thought the 77s were great, with many favorites. The 85s were nice, with some good ones. The 94s had a few standouts, but as a group weren't all there yet. So that suggests to me that I need at least 20 years, and around 30 is prime.

Hi Eric

I actually considered posting a similar question recently. My thought was to ask when a port has reached it's peak, but I realised that it would vary from producer to producer too much to make any sense. Then I considered posting for one producer only at a time along the lines of "Which vintage of Fonseca do you think is peaking from now and the next 1-2 years". But then I'd have to post for each producer and I sort of gave up on the idea after all :wall:

-Lars