For The Love Of Port

From David Spriggs' 50th birthday party at Roy's house. My palate still seemed to be a little off, but not nearly as badly as it was on Saturday night for the FTLOP 5th Anniversary party.

1935 Taylor Vintage Port
Color: Dark red/tawny. Amazingly youthful looking. Nice fingers.
Nose: Strawberry, soft raspberry, alcohol, dust/minerals. Looking for spice (it's a Taylor after all) but not sure it's there. Very light/faint mint. Anise.
Palate: Soft entry, secondary red fruits. Soft processed/powdered sugar. Some tannins, okay acidity. Mild toasted white pepper.
Finish: Medium length, some tannins, resolves nicely. Several apples in the tail.

Score: 93 points. An excellent Port, and on another night I might have called it outstanding. Given that it is 75 years old, really an amazing experience.

Glenn E. wrote:Several apples in the tail.

?????????

I think Glenn is very sensitive to acetaldehyde.

At the tail end of the finish of many Ports, I can taste apples. Most frequently Granny Smith apples, but in this case there were several different ones present.

Sometimes the flavor is a little less developed, in which case I generally note it as grape skin. And other times it is a little bit harsher, which I generally note as grape stem.

Acetaldehyde? I suppose that's possible... being immune to TCA doesn't mean that I can't be extra sensitive to something else.

Glenn E. wrote:
Score: 93 points. An excellent Port, and on another night I might have called it outstanding. Given that it is 75 years old, really an amazing experience.

Sure is an outstanding port. Not port one drinks very often.

I remember at a journo only Taylor vertical tasting in Porto a few years back, we had a bottle of the 1935 Taylor right from the cellar with a few hours of decant time. While I liked it quite a bit (I thought the bottle tasted a few weeks back showed better though) ... I remember one of the Wine Advocate's writers, Neal Martin not only loving it, but declaring it his favorite of all two dozen Taylor's VPs we had that day, between 1900 VP - 2005.

Glenn E. wrote:At the tail end of the finish of many Ports, I can taste apples. Most frequently Granny Smith apples, but in this case there were several different ones present. ... Acetaldehyde? I suppose that's possible... being immune to TCA doesn't mean that I can't be extra sensitive to something else.

Acetaldehyde naturally occurs in plants and can be a fermentation product from yeast as well. It is commonly characterized as tasting like green apples. As best as I can recall, it is a young crisp green apple flavor, or even the flavor you sometimes get in apple flavored candies, although its been a while since I had an apple Jolly Rancher, so I could be off here. Granny Smith makes me wonder if you are tasting something else, or I'm not remembering the flavor of acetaldehyde correctly.

Eric Menchen wrote:It is commonly characterized as tasting like green apples. As best as I can recall, it is a young crisp green apple flavor, or even the flavor you sometimes get in apple flavored candies, although its been a while since I had an apple Jolly Rancher, so I could be off here.

All of the above correctly describe the taste of a Granny Smith apple, though the Jolly Rancher analogy is the weakest. So it's very possible that I'm just noticing acetaldehyde at the tail end of the finish in a lot of Ports.