1975 Cockburn Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Pale red / orange in colour (poor lighting); vry light and transparent centre. Huge nose of choclate oranges and marmalade but with an interesting twist of rose perfume. Slightly hollow entry, slow to develop in the mouth but patience rewards with lovely fruit and plenty of bittler orange. A touch of heat on the aftertaste, which settles quickly to a soft and sweet length of red licorice. Better weight than the Martinez 1975 shown alongside. 85/100. Drunk 1 Feb 2010 after 2 hours in the decanter.

[Roy Hersh]

Alex,

My wife has a strong affinity for orange chocolate which she receives from her sister every Christmas season as an edible gift. However, you mention chocolate oranges and I've never seen that before. Is that a soft confection and either way, is this milk chocolate or otherwise? Fascinating.

Glad to see your '75 was showing nicely. I am in the midst of a Martinez kick, but nothing going back as far as that, just 1987 and younger. We don't have access to older ex-cellars bottles over here. I only see them at auction (here) on rare occasions.

[Peter W. Meek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry's_Chocolate_Orange (made in other Kraft factories since 2005, when the Terry factory closed its doors for the last time.) Made in several varieties of chocolate, all infused with orange oil.

There used to also be a Chocolate Apple, which was not flavored (unlike the "orange"). We used to get one every Christmas during the '50s and '60s from a family friend.

They were 20 segments of chocolate stuck together and wrapped in foil. Before unwrapping, you smacked it sharply on the table to break the join and separate the segments. (Or, if you were me, you unwrapped first and figured ways to pop single segments out without disturbing the rest of the segments. It was the only way I got any enjoyment from the gift, as I don't now, and didn't then, enjoy the taste of chocolate.)

[Eric Menchen]

Don't enjoy chocolate? I would give you a hard time, except I didn't enjoy chocolate until I went back to Europe and had good stuff. I still don't like milk chocolate much, and chocolate-milk products at all (pudding, ice cream, ...)

Back to the important stuff: Thank-you Al for the note. I have a bottle of this that I bought so I could taste something from 1975. I don't have high expectations, but it still sounds enjoyable.

[Peter W. Meek]

Don't enjoy chocolate? I would give you a hard time, except I didn't enjoy chocolate until I went back to Europe and had good stuff. I still don't like milk chocolate much, and chocolate-milk products at all (pudding, ice cream, ...)...

It runs in my family. My sister's first boyfriend was a chocoholic. She thought there might be something funny about him, since in her (limited at the time; 8 yrs old) experience, men didn't like chocolate.

[Al B.]

Alex,

My wife has a strong affinity for orange chocolate which she receives from her sister every Christmas season as an edible gift. However, you mention chocolate oranges and I've never seen that before. Is that a soft confection and either way, is this milk chocolate or otherwise? Fascinating.

Glad to see your '75 was showing nicely. I am in the midst of a Martinez kick, but nothing going back as far as that, just 1987 and younger. We don't have access to older ex-cellars bottles over here. I only see them at auction (here) on rare occasions.

The chocolate orange that came to mind as I was sipping this port, was a milk chocolate one. There was a lovely orange flavour, backed up by a soft and creamy chocolatiness.

[Peter W. Meek]

The Wiki article suggested that these were made milk chocolate for UK distribution and dark chocolate for US distribution.