For The Love Of Port

I opened a half bottle of Skeffington 2011 for the virtual tasting on Thursday (and a bottle of Quady Starboard Vintage 1994on Wednesday) last week.

The Skeffington was hard to resist!

For a 2011 tasting in London, to review the vintage at 15 years of age, I opened Vesúvio Capela, Graham and Noval. The Graham tasted like it had been stored in a warm cellar, being quite evolved. The Noval was big and chunky but in a really good way. The Capela was slightly corked.

That’s a really interesting tasting, thank you for sharing the results. There are a lot of those wines I just never get to try.

Smith Woodhouse 1970 VP — delicious, mature VP.

I’ve had the ‘61 Krohn a few times. It’s a lovely wine, elegant and refined which is full of secondary flavours. It doesn’t need a long decant - maybe start at 1 hour and drink it over the next 2 hours.

A half bottle of Croft 2004 LBV, bottled in 2009. Bottles unfiltered but cold stabilized and racked before bottling. These throw a decent amount of sediment so have to be decanted. Lots of black cherry, some gentle tannins but lacking the complexity you’d hope to get from a full vintage Port. Despit...

A snippet that I learned a couple of weeks ago is that this wine did not come from Krohn stocks but was a more recent acquisition from a family who had full IVP/IVDP paperwork to show it is properly a 1976 Colheita.

Yes, I knew that, which really sucks. The question is what does Grupo Melo do with it? Try to build back stock or slap the Krohn name on inferior Port and try to leverage the brand name? I do believe they got to keep the Ruby Ports ( VP, etc) with the purchase. But I believe TFP kept all the tawnys...

Thanks Melis, the extra pictures help a lot. What you have is a Colheita Port from the 1940 harvest - a Port which was matured in the barrel until it was bottled in 1989. It was bottled by a cooperative, who would probably have sourced the wine shortly before bottling it. Most likely the wine will h...

Hi Melis, Does the bottle have a label on the back? If it does, can you post a picture of it? Also pictures of the sello (the label under the capsule) on both sides of the bottle would help. And can you please post pictures of the top of the capsule and the bottom of the bottle. Thank you, Alex

Quinta da Devesa 40YO Tawny. I love the elegance of the blend, as well as the power. This bottle was opened 2 weeks ago and is still half full - to be sipped and savoured on the odd evening.

When did Luís Sottomayor take over as winemaker? He’s had a huge, positive impact on the quality and style of the Sogrape brands. I wonder if 1994 was his first vintage?

Gould Campbell 1977 from magnum. What can I say? I didn't want to run out over the weekend.

Alex, if you can still find the 2008 or 2003 Kopke White Colheita, they are very good. I especially like the 2008. I'm not a huge fan of Kopke's WWAIOA. To me, they seem to be lacking. Their White Colheitas on the other hand are pretty good. Of course we all like what we like, so go figure. I agree...

A bottle of Graham 2011 for a tasting that we're going to have in London on 23rd April. I have some Graham 2011 in storage - but only halves or magnum / larger formats. No bottles!

Kopke 2010 White Colheita - it’s OK but I’d prefer the 10 or 20YO blend. Poças’s 1996 Colheita - big, young and still very fruit driven. 1965 Quinta de Vargellas - rather nice, mature and very easy drinking (but not as good as the Dow 1963 that was also opened, but not by me). 1963 Quinta do Noval N...

I've had this a few times and discussed it with the former MD of Hedges & Butler, who were the UK bottlers. It's a Crusted Port because it's a blend of different vintages. The highest category of Port that a blend of vintage can achieve (at least in the minds of the owners of Noval at the time) ...

I love Port (...my name's Alex and I'm a Port drinker...) but I'm also really interested in fortified wines in general and in particular where the wine-makers follow Port as their model. South Africa and Australia are great examples, often Portuguese varieties and because of the seasons being revers...

I'm going to follow Glenn's lead and do this by category, but since I am much meaner with my points that he is, my lists are a little shorter. Tawny Graham 80YO Tawny (99, 98) Barros Tawny 102 Special Edition (98) DR L70 (98) DR Roncão (98) Colheita 1972 Quevedo Colheita (99) 1952 Graham Single Harv...

Over the last few days we've opened the F85 I mentioned earlier, G83, a bottle of the Churchill Club Tawny that was a special blend for the short-lived Churchill Port Club and a bottle of Quevedo 40YO (2022 bottling). The F85 was fabulous. The G83 had slightly too much VA to be enjoyable. The Church...