For The Love Of Port

Tasted in NYC on 2/19/2010 in a flight of 5

1960 Sandeman Vintage Port
1963 Sandeman Vintage Port
1966 Sandeman Vintage Port
1970 Sandeman Vintage Port
1977 Sandeman Vintage Port

1960 Sandeman Vintage Port

Color: Deep garnet with a ruby edge. 3rd darkest out of 5.
Nose: Ripe strawberries, some dust, and sharp but faint alcohol. Also a faint soapy note. Smells tannic, if that makes sense.
Palate: Dry and tart. Lacking tannins, but decent acidity. Tart, almost green, raspberry is the only fruit I can find. Light body. Nice warmth, but with a hot style to the warmth. Did I mention dry?

My #4 (of 5) on the night, which ran counter to the rest of the table. I found it too dry and too tart for my taste. The heat was interesting, because it wasn't intense but it had an edge to it that made it feel hot in an unobtrusive way.

Difficult to rate in the absence of comparison points, but I suspect it would be in the 85-87 range for me. I'll give it 85 points to be conservative... I just get the feeling that in the presence of a better Port from another producer that this would seem much weaker.

Glenn E. wrote:Smells tannic, if that makes sense.

No, it doesn't, unless maybe we are talking about tanning hides and not grape tannins.

Eric Menchen wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:Smells tannic, if that makes sense.

No, it doesn't, unless maybe we are talking about tanning hides and not grape tannins.

LOL... no, that's not what I meant.

I meant that it smelled like it was going to have great structure from strong tannins. Since you don't even taste tannins - you feel them - I'm not sure how to explain what I thought I was smelling, but that was one of the first things that popped into my head when I stuck my nose in the glass.