1985 Grahams Vintage Port

[Bill Spohn]

1985 Grahams Port – dark wine with a spicy plum and date nose, less sweet than many vintages of this wine tend to be, slightly hot but not to the point of being unpleasant, with very good length. I haven’t started to drink this wine from my cellar yet, but based on this tasting I’d say it was hitting prime time.

This was the final wine in a dinner that included a 1961 Latour and 1989 Stags Leap.

[Roy Hersh]

Two questions:

a. How long was it decanted?

b. What gave you the impression it was hitting its prime?

I am very interested in your response to this. Thanks!

[Bill Spohn]

Two questions:

a. How long was it decanted?

b. What gave you the impression it was hitting its prime?

I am very interested in your response to this. Thanks!

Hi Roy.

I've tasted this a couple of times before and always found it pretty primary with none of the secondary elements that make Ports interesting to me. This one was decanted about 4 hours before we first tasted it and 5 hours before we finished it.

The cellar it comes from is similar to my own, cooler rather than a warmer early maturing scenario. The tannins are now softening considerably, in this bottle, at least, and the flavour differentiation that comes with age is well under way; it is much more interesting than the last time I tried it. The colour has lost the youthful purple and settled into a nice deep red, the finish has lengthened and added dimensions since my last tasting about 3 years ago.

As always with wine, take any single datum point advisedly - the next 3 bottles I taste could of course be far different.

When I say hitting prime, it should be taken in contenxt - I tend to leave bottles a fairly long time, especially with Port and the 60s and 70s are where my attentions lie these days, but this seemed to be getting there and with 6 -12 hours of time in the decanter might be even more so. I'd figure that the wine should last another decade and a half easy, but for those that like to take an early look, they wouldn't be slaughtering an infant that should have been left to grow up. I'd be interested in your experience with the wine, as I'd feel more confident popping one of my own in the next couple of years with some confirmation that this bottle showed more or less typically.

Can I sneak in a question? Wondering how the 1987 Quinto do Tua is doing these days.....