Quinta da Romaneira 40 Year Old Tawny Port
Color: Deep, rich burnt umber color with red highlights. Perhaps a very deep burnt orange might be closer.
Nose: Wonderful nose. Faint christmas spices, cinnamon apple candy, some vanilla, and something like those sugar coated orange jelly candies.
Palate: Rich and full. Definitely on the sweeter end of the spectrum, but has great acidity to balance it out. Some blood orange and brown sugar. Sweet dried apricots. Just a slight grapefruit-like tang. Just a little bit of toffee and/or caramel.
Finish: The fruits from the palate carry over (especially the dried apricots to which I'd add dried apples) and the finish is very long. Minutes long. Some granny smith apples appear in the tail-off to nothingness. Take a sip before bed and you can still taste it in the morning.
Score: 97 points. Exquisite. Sometimes I think I have to be scoring this too low, because I honestly can't think of much that could make it better. The only real knock against it - and it's a pretty minor quibble - is that a bottle doesn't last as long once opened as other 40-yr olds. 2-3 days is the limit to me, whereas a Kopke or Noval can go 7-10 days easily. Then again that 2-3 day limit is rarely reached... the bottle's usually empty well before there's any danger of it degrading.
