2001 Churchill's Crusted Port -- bottled 2001

[Todd Pettinger]

Churchill’s Crusted Port – bottled 2001
I was surprised (almost shocked) to see this in a local wine merchant. One with an excellent selection of many dessert/sweet wines, but rather lacking in the Port department, particularly the Vintage variety. Nevertheless, this was a gem I never expected to find this side of the US border, so grabbed it immediately.

Decanted (14:00 hrs) through cheesecloth but surprising, the majority of the sediment stayed in the bottle, well-glued to the glass. The small amount of sediment that did come out of a very dark bottle was exceedingly black and thick. Upon decanting, the nose was muted. Persistent swirling loosened some violets and a dusty floral aroma, grapes and dark berries over a slight tinge of spirit. A fairly dark, deep burgundy-red colour, it is intriguing. I look forward to sampling this over the next few hours.

Initial sample sip contains a lighter palate than expected, with hints of honey, clover and almost-raisin. Some tannic dryness on the mid- to back-palate.

+4.5 hrs
Plums and grapes are the dominant nose. Some prune juice on the palate and the alcohol is nicely integrated, almost unnoticeable. Medium sweet, with a dry finish. Thick, tannic structure indicates that this Port could potentially age for some time, although there is not too much acidity to balance the tannins, so I would suspect that 20-30 years may be pushing it.

+1 day
Weaker body than I had expected, almost thin and uninteresting at points. Perhaps I am suffering from heightened expectations, but I am just not finding this as full-bodied as I would have expect a bottle-matured Port to be. Dark berries, but not robust. At times over the past couple of hours sampling this, I detected hints of honey and clover, grapes and blackberries, and perhaps even a slight raisin thrown in at times. Still strongly tannic, the sweetness is muted, and I am reminded more of the Dow style than anything else.

A dry finish rounds it out as a decent, but not great Port. I would buy it again, don’t get me wrong, but I likely would not go as far as to purchase a half of full case to see how it ages. Although the tannins are certainly preset for long-term aging, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot else to balance off these tannins making me wonder whether this would simply remain bitter and tannic for years due to being unbalanced, or whether it would simply reach a point where it would fade, rather quickly, as the tannins lose their steam and the entire wine turns more or less tawny? Being that there were only two bottles on the shelf when I picked this one up, it is unlikely that I will be able to pick up a whole bunch more in order to test this theory out over the next decade or so.

+2 days
Finishing the last couple of ounces of this was actually bitter-sweet. I believe the wine may have been evolving with 48+ hours in the decanter into something I am a bit more excited about, however, only two small glasses remained, so I had no further opportunity to explore this. I will be trying to pick up another bottle if it remains in the store, and will be inquiring as to whether they plan to, or can obtain more. If so, I may end up with a 3- or 4-pack of this in the cellar for an extended period of time, and next time will likely show it a bit more decanter time before consuming it en masse.

[Andy Velebil]

I don't have a ton of experience with Crusted Ports, but I wonder if this was shutting down a bit. Generally speaking here, but VPs will start shutting down around the 7th year. So I wonder if this was doing the same and that is why it took so long to finally start showing some promise. Of course I could be totally wrong...