TN: 1985 Delaforce Vintage Port

[Al B.]

Decant: 4 hours - Purchased from Costco in Reading and opened about 2 weeks after purchase.

Beautiful aroma of concentrated Ribena on decanting. The pure black and impenetrable glass made decanting very difficult, although the very pale rose colour of the wine did mean that the sediment showed up on the wine in the funnel very quickly.

After 4 hours in the decanter, the wine was much darker than when decanted, a distinctly red centre with a touch of brown at the rim. A wonderful nose lifted out of the glass, of strawberries and brown sugar - not a hint of unintegrated alcohol. Smooth into the mouth, sweet and silky. Although it is a sweet wine, it has lovely balance and elegance. Plenty of fruit on the mid-palate but also a slight hint of some volatility that was a little distracting. The aftertaste is quite stunning. Strong and pronounced and very long lasting the aftertaste moves through a whole panoply of fruit salad flavours before finishing with a strong coffee tone. I was very pleasantly surprised by this wine and would say that it is certainly above the median experience for drinking now and is probably better than the Warre '85 that I had a couple of weeks ago. Suckling's book and comments are probably well out of date for this wine now. 7-7. 92 points