Should our Gran have kept or drank this Port ?

[c koster]

Hello, and thanks for accepting me as a new member, i have a question and hope someone can help.

We recently cleared out our granny's house and cellar, and found this bottle of port which she must have brought back from a holiday in the 1960s or 1970s, and wondering if it is still drinkable?

for a picture see: https://imgur.com/a/4A4HA
There's no date on the bottle, so no idea when it was bottled, only found a thread on your forum about the Morgan Brothers who no longer seem to be
bottling port.

thanks for any advice,

C. Koster

[John M.]

Dear C;

Welcome aboard. That's a basic ruby and should have been drunk long ago--not meant for aging. Suggest you open with a few others and try it out and Toast your Gran---just have a back up if case it's oxidized/undrinkable.

[Andy Velebil]

Dear C;

Welcome aboard. That's a basic ruby and should have been drunk long ago--not meant for aging. Suggest you open with a few others and try it out and Toast your Gran---just have a back up if case it's oxidized/undrinkable.

+1

[Glenn E.]

As already explained, that's a basic Ruby Port that's not meant to be aged. However, that doesn't mean it will be "bad" in an undrinkable sense - just that it won't have improved over time and will probably be at least somewhat flat and lifeless. Port is an extremely sturdy wine and rarely ever becomes completely undrinkable purely due to age, though I have experienced one. However that one was from 1873 (!) so I think your Ruby Port from the 1960s is probably still okay.

[Tom Archer]

Welcome to the forum..

The bottle has no more than curiosity value, and the contents certainly won't poison you, so pick a suitable occasion and see what it's like. There is likely to be a fair amount of sediment in the bottle, so leave it standing still for a day, and then decant it off into a decanter - another bottle - or even a jug.

One of the great delights of port is that long forgotten bottles like this, which were never intended to be aged, are not only almost always drinkable but are often surprisingly good.

- Enjoy!

[Eric Menchen]

I won't repeat the solid information above. The capsule looks good, but it looks like a T-stopper underneath. Be prepared for the possibility that the cork will break from it and you may be up for an extraction operation. I'd have a filter of some sort on hand to deal with a crumbly cork. If you don't need it, no harm.

[Tom Archer]

Eric is correct there - if you try to simply twist off an old T stopper, it will very often break. Rocking it gently stands a better chance of getting it out in one, but have a corkscrew handy to whip out the base in case the top snaps off.