Multi: Tasting 1994 vs 1997 Vintage Ports: Fonseca, Taylor, Warre's

[Alan Gardner]

This was a Blind Tasting on 29 May 2009 of 6 wines. The tasting compared Taylor, Fonseca and Warre’s 1994 and 1997 vintages. All came from the same cellar and were decanted about 2 hours before the tasting. The tasting notes are mine, but there was also a group ranking (9 tasters).
No specific notes on colour, as all were similar – deep ruby (although the 94’s were slightly deeper in colour than the 97’s).

1994 Fonseca (poured as wine D)
On nose, very structured fruit – deep and intense with almost a metallic backbone (? Iron). On the palate everything there and in perfect balance with great fruit right through to the long finish. Great now but a long life ahead.
My ranking 1st (by a wide margin). Group ranking tied for 1st (3-way tie).

1994 Taylor (poured as wine B)
Corked! Wet leaf on nose. No structure, alcohol separate.
Everybody’s ranking 6th.

1994 Warre’s (poured as Wine A)
Very open plumy fruit on nose. Leaps out of glass.
On the taste, fruit was sweet, rather than structured with soft tannins and well-balanced. Long finish. Excellent for drinking now.
My ranking 3rd. Group ranking 4th.

1997 Fonseca (poured as wine F)
Touch of orange on the rim – showing some age.
Nose almost overripe fruit.
Palate unbalanced. Dry start, then falls away in the centre, leading to a soft fleshy finish. Not sure where this is going.
My ranking 5th. Group ranking 5th.

1997 Taylor (poured as wine E)
Most aromatic/flowery aromas of group – Lavender?
Good acisity, but a little hollow in the centre. Fruit comes back at finish, but flavours not (yet?) integrated.
My ranking 4th. Group ranking tied for 1st (3-way tie).

1997 Warre’s (poured as wine C)
Very open and fleshy fruit, on the nose – plums.
In the mouth, huge fleshy fruit which grows in the mouth and evolves to good acid, which hold through a very long finish. Drinking extremely well.
My ranking 2nd. Group ranking tied for 1st (3-way tie).

Summary

Other than the corked Taylor, these were all good to excellent solid wines. The scores were too confusing to declare a ‘winner’.
But for drinking now, Warre’s is probably the best choice – both vintages were drinking well.
In the group standings there was a tie for first – one each for Warre’s, Taylor & Fonseca. And 1997 had the overall edge with the group (but not for me). For me, the 94 Fonseca was the standout wine!

NOTE: I've aggregated all the notes here for anyone that wants to see the whole tasting. I've also extracted the relevant notes to the corresponding individual wine notes.

[Alan Gardner]

Oops - should have beeen in Tasting Notes. Please move (and remove this response).
Alan

[Roy Hersh]

Alan,

I will ask a favor. As we are deeply into the process of improving the tasting note data base ... when you have time, please separate each TN into the Port Tasting Note Forum area which will be a great help.

Thank you!

As to the tasting, it looks like all of you had a great time. So sorry to hear that the 1994 Taylor was corked, but shtuff happens. Anyway, the 1997 Taylor vs. Fonseca I had recently was a great taste off. Your event sounds like one great time!

Roy

[Edward Nemergut]

Thanks: that's a very interesting tasting!

May I ask why you decided on only a two hour decant? It seems like these young ports would be much after a 6 (or more hours)...

[Alan Gardner]

Two reasons.
First, it was held on a Friday evening. Logistics meant an earlier decant was impractical.
Secondly, as a matter of principle I NEVER decant unless 'necessary' (most common reason is because of sediment - sediment affects the enjoyment more than (in my opinion) the deleterious effects of decanting).
Being (somewhat?) opinionated I have never really understood why decanting would 'help' a wine - oxygen is usually thought of as being harmful to wine - most people agree with this IN THE LONGER TERM. But there seem to be differences in the shorter term. Exactly what chemical (?) process gives benefits in the 'short term'? - I agree there could potentially be some, but remain to be convinced of what they are. So I resorted to blind tests. We blind tasted 3 wines - one sample decanted 6 hours ahead; one 2 hours ahead and one was 'opened and poured'. (One was Italian, one a Bordeaux - and memory fails me on the third - may have been Californian - but it wasn't a Port).
In all 3 cases the 'open and pour' sample (for absolute honesty, there was a tie for first in one sample) came top (about 40 tasters participated).
Also I have 'qualitative' evidence of tasting old wines where the presenters have 'usually' indicated to "drink this quickly before it oxidises". Again oxygen is the villain.

But I still am waiting for evidence that decanting early has 'improved' any wine through oxidation (or equivalent process). Although I'll except overly-sulphurized wines where it helps to let the sulphur escape - even there though I prefer to achieve this by swirling, rather than decanting.

The only reason it was 2 hours was logistics. Organizing a blind tasting dictates that the wine needs to be 'organized' in advance, and we were still pouring the last couple of selections as the participants arrived.

Hey, Roy, theres a potential tasting for the 2nd annual gettogether.

[Alan Gardner]

Alan,

I will ask a favor. As we are deeply into the process of improving the tasting note data base ... when you have time, please separate each TN into the Port Tasting Note Forum area which will be a great help.

Thank you!

As to the tasting, it looks like all of you had a great time. So sorry to hear that the 1994 Taylor was corked, but shtuff happens. Anyway, the 1997 Taylor vs. Fonseca I had recently was a great taste off. Your event sounds like one great time!

Roy

Hey, Roy,
I already (attempted) to write separate notes. There were already existing notes on each wine so I added to them - but none of them had the magic "TN:" attached. I think there was some attempt being made to extract these automatically - if this doesn't seem possible, can you alert everybody (I did know about the note request - hence the double posting of each note).

PS For some reason, in the heading "Warre's" was truncated to "Warr" - can you (someone?) edit the heading to ensure a search on 'Warre's' will work?

[Eric Menchen]

Nice lineup Alan, and thank-you for the tasting notes. I'm glad to see the 1997s held their own.

[Andy Velebil]

Alan,
thanks for posting. This past week I was thinking to myself, "Hmm, don't hear much about those 1997's." So it was perfect timing on your post.

As for TN's, we generally prefer a totally new TN for each Port. Exceptions being if everyone is posting about the same tasting. That way each TN has the potential to start it's own discussion without intruding on the other TN's. But it's certainly not wrong to do so either. The important thing is to just get people to post a TN.

As for "Warr", there is only so many characters that can be used in a heading, so it exceded the limit. I'll see what I can do to make it fit.

*edit* I was able to get the rest of Warre's in, but had to remove "of", hope that is ok?