For The Love Of Port

I received this 375ml bottle at the Quinta during the 2010 Port Harvest Tour.

1999 Quinta de la Rosa LBV

Color: dark red, starting to brick. The color is a lot like a dark bing cherry. Not quite opaque, but close.

Nose: chocolate and dark stone fruits including cherries. Some alcohol, but it is faint. Also some dry grain... almost like a hearty bread.

Palate: full body, smooth tannins, and good acidity. There's still room for some aging here... probably another 5-8 years. Dark cherry, a bit of blueberry, and some dark or over-ripe red raspberry are the main fruits. Very slight bitter note that isn't intrusive. Very smooth.

Finish: fruity to start, then a bit bitter. Tannic and dry mid-way through, but then slowly resolves as tart apples. Good length.

Score: 91 points. I'd be very happy to have a case or two of these half bottles to drink over the next few years. It's very drinkable, but also has enough complexity to be sipped for an evening. I had heard that it isn't great - very good, just not great - but this bottle certainly borders on greatness for an LBV. In a couple of years I think it would rival the 1995 Smith Woodhouse, which is one of my favorite LBVs.

Edit: Score adjusted down from 93 to reflect the experience over the subsequent two days.

Was this driven cork or t-stoppered? I've got a couple bottles of the '09 LBV that are t-stoppered and have been reluctant to plan to hold on to them. Fortunately the taste I had before buying made it seem like they were gonna be easy to drink early, despite their potential for an interesting decade +.

This one was a driven cork. I'll have to check to see if it was unfiltered or not... I think it was but I'm not sure.

It doesn't say unfiltered, so that means it is probably filtered. It really doesn't strike me as a filtered LBV though, so that's strange.

Tonight at D+24 it isn't as luscious. There's a tartness that has shown up that I don't really care for, but it isn't too bad. Tonight I'd probably only give it 91 points, but for now I'll leave the score where it is. I've saved a glass for tomorrow as well.

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Friday night (D+48) echoed Thursday night or was possibly slightly worse, which makes me think that the first night was affected by food. We had jambalaya for dinner, and while I didn't have the Port until an hour or so later that still could have affected my palate. I'm going to adjust my score down to a 91 overall, though in the future I'll be sure to have something spicy to eat to go along with this LBV!