My girlfriend and I popped it last night when we got home from work. The cork looked clean, but as I pulled it out , it crumbled to bits - not the most auspicious of signs. We decanted it thruough an extra-thorough chunk of cheesecloth to ensure that no cork bits infiltrated the decanter. It seemed to work well as the port came through clean. We had a glass just after decanting, drank some more a few hours later, and finished it off about an hour ago, which was roughly 24 hours after decanting. Although it did open up noticibly between the initial glass and the following tasting, it was drinking consistenly tonight with how it showed last night, just a bit mellower. My notes were as follows:
Quite dark - purple/burgundy with a vague ruddiness evident on the rim. The nose is moderately expressive, if somewhat simple. I noted cherry fruit with a prominent prune character and a mild musty/earthiness that was not unpleasant. Prune and cherry fruit come through strongly again on the front of the palate, slightly stewed, though not overly so (perhaps due to poor temperature control while sitting on that shelf for who-knows-how-long?). The midpalate adds some licorice into the mix as well as a little spirit, but this integrated by the second day, and the tannins are soft and mellow. The finish is surprisingly long with lingering notes of brown sugar and bitters. Tasty stuff, nothing to complain about really, outside of the stewed edge that I mentioned, but not exceptional either. However, considering the very questionable provenance of the bottle, along with the poor cork, I have to wonder if a better stored example might show better. Going by the bottle I tasted, I'd guess this probably has another 10 years or so of good drinking left in it, maybe a little longer.
Anyone else sipped this bottle and have an opinion on it?
