in celebration of our decision to join the upcoming Harvest Tour. 
I'm not great on writing tasting notes but I will do my best to convey my impression and experience.
This was our very first tasting of a Fonseca '63. Up to that point, we had tasted a good many other '63's not including the Fonseca and the Nacional. I decanted it for almost 6 hours but shared a glass with my wife prior to decanting. I don't know if others place the same value or derive similar enjoyment from tasting the first glass straight from the bottle prior to decanting, but we sure do. I think it says a great deal about the experience to come and allows us to watch, taste, discuss and enjoy the evolution process together. What an incredible experience it was!
From the bottle to the glass, the sweet fragrance of the Fonseca was already filling the room. The nose from the glass was big and full of spirit. The deep purple color really took me by surprise and on based color alone, I would have thought it a '77-'83 first-tier VP. I very much enjoyed the undecanted first glass, unmistakably '63 grapes, but it was a bit too strong for my wife. Truth be told, if I was a less patient man I could have begun the drinking just then, but I've learned that patience in decanting great VP is almost always worth it in the end and we also had a basketball game to attend, Suns vs. Celtics, so I had no choice.
When we arrived home victorious, we went straight to the port to see how it evolved. I had decanted enough for both of us to have our own 3/4 full port glass. As a couple, we usually have three glasses in total the first night just as we had done that night, and then polish off the rest the following evening. This strategy worked well for savoring and prolonging the enjoyment of what expectedly turned out to be the very best bottle of VP we have ever drank.
Although the Fonseca was fantastic out of the bottle, the decanting time allowed the spirit to blow off quite a bit and left us with a very beautiful and complex vintage port to enjoy. I see where if I had decanted the whole bottle it would have been impossible not to drink it all. The finish went on what seemed like forever, but in reality was about three to five minutes. I wished it had a little more spirit or spice to it after the decanting but it had resolved into such an incredible liquid work of art it was hardly a disappointment. We drank up and waited until the following afternoon/evening.
We use a vacuum pump and refrigerate to keep the VP fresh for the next night. I've tried CO2 and PreServe (Argon) but to my taste, the vacuum and a return to cooler temperature still works best.
The following day, late in the afternoon, my wife and I began on the remaining 65% of the bottle. Again, right out of the glass the balance was such that I was ready to begin so I poured our shared glass, which survived up until the bedtime of our 10 month old. After bedtime, dinner and port was the call of the evening but we forgot to take the steaks out of the fridge (we don't put cold steaks on a grill, room temp for two to three hours is the key---kind of like port!) so we had to settle on something that after eating wouldn't take away from our enjoyment of port. We settled on roast-beef sandwiches, not exactly exotic but certainly innocuous to the enjoyment of port compared to Thai food.
On to the port!
There was no need for decanting the second night. After each glass was poured, I vacuum-sealed the bottle until it was time to refill the glasses. We each got two more half-glasses out of the bottle until it was gone. It's so sad when such a great vintage port reaches its end-point but it was inevitable, and sad. I can't put into words just how well, how great and how monumental this port was for us. I'll leave that to the writers on this forum like Roy and Andy. All I can say is this, of all the vintage ports we’ve drank over the years, this Fonseca ’63 was the best, period! When it was gone, I seriously considered opening our remaining bottle of Fonseca ’63 until my wife brought me to sanity by reminding me what it would cost to replace both bottles!
By the way, we purchased this bottle in 2004 from Golden West. It was a British bottling (green bottle) with a replacement label (looking somewhat like a Dow label) and was accompanied by an original embossed wax cap that was 100% intact. The fill was into the neck. I paid about $325 back then and would consider myself very lucky to be able to replace it at that price today or close if one of similar quality became available.
Fonseca ’63, I salute you!
Best regards to all,
