2007 Taylor Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha Vintage Port

[Glenn E.]

Tasted blind at Roy's house, July 17, 2009. (With a follow-up for the cask samples on July 20, 2009.)

9 Vintage Ports, 7 Tawnies and Colheitas, and 2 Madeiras. 5 guys. 1 night. Port heaven!

Bottle #1: 2007 Quinta do Vesuvio Capela Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #2: 2007 Niepoort Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #3: 2007 Croft Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #4: 2007 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #5: 2007 Graham Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #6: 2007 Warre Vintage Port (finished bottle)
Bottle #7: 2007 Taylor Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port Vinha Velha (cask sample)
Bottle #8: 2007 Fonseca Vintage Port (cask sample)
Bottle #9: 2007 Duorum Vintage Port (cask sample)

2007 Taylor Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port Vinha Vehla (cask sample)

Note: this was a cask sample, but the thread title has a length limit that prevents me from including all the necessary verbiage.

Day 1
Color: More red than the rest, almost to ruby-purple. 1/4" fade at the rim, so also relatively transparent.
Nose: Bright blueberry, significant alcohol, and a bit of dust.
Palate: Raw chocolate - not exactly cocoa, but also not a finished (sweetened) product. Medium body weight and medium on the sweetness scale, with decent tannins and acidity. Good mellow purple fruits. There's an extra sweet kick in the mid palate, as well as a sensation of BBQ sauce (slightly smokey, slightly sweet, slightly tangy).
Finish: That same raw chocolate sensation mingled with the purple fruits, followed late by some grape skin/green apple. Decent length.

Initial score: 89-92. Concerns over my apparently wonky palate for the day were subsiding, but I still wasn't sure all was right.

Day 2 & Day 3 - I didn't taste on day 2 or 3 due to prior commitments

Day 4
Color: A more standard "young VP" purple today, and more opaque as well at about 3/16" of fade. The time has helped the look in the glass.
Nose: Spirity, a medly of medium and ripe red fruits with some purple tossed in for balance, and a very faint mineral note.
Palate: Now medium full body and slightly sweeter (medium sweet). Chocolate silk. Good acidity and tannins, so those have both become more pronounced. Vaguely spicy a la Christsmas spices, but not quite. A very slight sour note provides some extra roundness to the fruits.
Finish: Tangy fruit, tannins, and eventually something greenish that's not quite grape stem. Decent length, but not particularly long.

Final score: 90-93 points.

Final comments: Another surprise for me... this is supposed to compete with Nacional? I've never actually tasted a Nacional, but from the rave reviews it gets I sort of expected a VVV to blow my mind if it's supposed to be competitive. Like the Croft, though, this bottle didn't seem as good to me as the one I tasted at McCarthy & Schiering on Queen Anne, so it's possible this just wasn't a great bottle. (I had the Croft and VVV tied for WOTN at the McCarthy & Schiering tasting.)

[Andy Velebil]

I've had this bottling several times now, blind, double blind, and non-blind. each of my scores have been fairly consistant and I too have generally been underwhelmed by a bottle that is to compete with a Nacional. Still a very nice bottle, don't get me wrong, but that price to quality ratio takes a bit of a hit on this vintage.

[Eric Menchen]

Palate: Raw chocolate - not exactly cocoa, but also not a finished (sweetened) product.

Cocoa nibs?

[Glenn E.]

Cocoa nibs?

Hmm... yeah, that might be it! I'll have to remember that the next time I encounter this sort of raw chocolate sensation.