1963 Taylor's Vintage Port

[Rune EG]

A distant friend had inherited from his father and he was not interested in port, but as he knew that I was “above average” interested in port, I got for a reasonable price in 2005. Apparently the bottle has been in father’s house cellar for abt 15-20 years and before that at another person’s cellar for many years. It was opened with friends to celebrate some mutual achievements.

I have noted in FTLOP tasting notes that there are varying scores on this Taylor’s 1963, and unfortunately we were a bit disappointed (compared to expectations). Noted it already on opening the bottle, so I immediately also opened the backup bottle for the evening, a Dow 1970 (separate tasting note). The Taylor’s 1963: Got the cork out in piece due to The Durand. Decanted 4 hrs. Clear transparent light red colour with a touch of brown. On the way to be tawny like. Aroma of dried fruit. Balanced, round, sweet but still a bit sharp. Medium body. Relatively smooth. A nice vintage port, but the greatness was not there. I suspect that the bottle has been through more temperature variations in the house cellar than mentioned to me. 87 pts.

[Roy Hersh]

Hi Rune,

Calling yourself "above average" when it comes to Port ... is quite humble of you.

It was outstanding having the chance to spend another week with you and Emmy. Hope you loved the time in Portugal again.

As to the 1963 Taylor, I opened one at the end of March this year, it was the first bottle of 1963 Taylor I had ever purchased and it was opened for a special visit ... Taylor's CEO came to our home for lunch ... and this was dessert. It was still dark garnet color with almost no signs of age and was a brilliant showing. I too have had mixed messages from bottles of this in recent years. Provenance is all I can attribute it to.