1951 Offley Colheita Port -- Barrão de Forrester
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:26 pm
- 1951 Offley Porto Barrão de Forrester Colheita - Portugal, Douro, Porto (6/4/2011)
By far trhe best of the bottles I bought at an Acker auction 5 years ago. This was bottled in 1988. It has reached a point of wonderful smoothness, an excellent balance of sweetness and acidity. The color is light caramel brown. The palate is lightly sweet, with roasted nuts, caramel, a bit of almost orange-like citrus, and the classic fruit flavor of Touriga Nacional that is prevalent in port and even in non-fortified Touriga Nacional dry wines. The label says tawny but it lacks the bite and bitterness at the back of the palate that I have found in 20 and even 30 year tawnies. Long finish that gradually dissipates and spreads nutty caramel across the palate. (93 pts.)
All I can say is that I have had dry wines that were primarily Touriga Nacional three times. There is a flavor that was very clear in all three of those wines, which is prevalent in vintage port, that must be a characteristic of the grape because nothing else makes sense. One of the bottles was a non-desript portugese wine brought to a BBQ by a friend of mine who had bought it off the shelf at a store a few days before. I was drinking it with Brad Coehlo and we both noticed the flavor. I went searching for information about the blend, and confirmed that the wine was part Touriga Nacional.