1977 Dow Vintage Port

[Glenn E.]

Decanted at 9:00 am for a dinner tasting. The cork was completely soaked through and nearly disintegrated while I was removing it, but enough of it held together that I could clearly make out the "Dow's 1977 Vintage" branding.

The dregs have been sitting in a glass settling for about 3 hours, which makes it lunch time - time for some Port!

1977 Dow Vintage Port

1st taste at decant +3 hours

Color: Dark garnet and purple, both in the glass and in the decanter. Lots of fine sediment still floating in the dregs glass, but the decanter appears to be clear. Success! This bottle appears darker than either of the two recent bottles I've tried, but that could be lighting differences in three different locations.
Nose: Upon decant, sweet strawberry and blackberry. From the dregs glass, some very faint and very high-toned mint. Also some faint dust bordering on dirt, and just the tiniest bit of aromatic alcohol. Rich fruits; some red currant has appeared along with the strawberry and blackberry.
Palate: Rich and red - that's almost a book title - slightly tart, and slightly thick due to the still floating extremely fine sediment. A bit of an edge that will hopefully settle down with more decant time.
Finish: Nice heat, tart fruit, then a quick fade. There's some bitterness in there, but it's not strong. Doesn't seem particularly long at this stage, hopefully that will change by evening.

No VA and no TCA, at least as near as I can tell. The fruits aren't muted like I usually find after someone tells me a Port is corked, so that's at least a hopeful sign. I'll update and add a score after the tasting.

[Glenn E.]

Sadly, by the time the tasting rolled around, this bottle was corked.

As usual I couldn't smell it or taste it, but what was unusual was that the fruits were still present and accounted for. If it's big enough and powerful enough to stand strong even when corked, I can only imagine how good the 1977 Dow would be if there were no TCA present.

[Roy Hersh]

Although we unfortunately had several bad bottles of what would otherwise have been very fine Ports, this is the one I had really been looking forward to trying. Darn corks @#$%^&*().