For The Love Of Port

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament Dow Vertical
New York City
March 19, 2011

My wife participates in the ACPT every year, and conveniently there is a lively Port tasting group in New York City. So every year we plan a Port tasting to coincide with the tournament, and this was the 2011 edition.

1994 Dow Vintage Port

Color: Very dark, nicely purple. Not entirely opaque, but close.
Nose: Young and very fruity. Lots of dark berries.
Palate: Tannic, young, beastly. Not ready yet - at least 10 more years just to really be approachable.
Finish: Long and very nice. Possibly the most pleasant aspect at this point in its life.

Score: 94 points. And it's only going to get better with more time.

Hi Glenn,

What was the decanting regimen on this particular bottle?

I don't have that recorded in my notes, but I think this was one of the bottles that was decanted overnight. So it would have been about 24 hours.

The decanting regimen at the tasting was hit-and-miss. A few bottles had nice long decants, but a few also had very short 2-hour decants. The 2007 was pop-n-pour by request of several people who attended.

This was actually the bottle that I brought to the vertical and it had about a 24 hour decant before it was served.