For The Love Of Port

Nose: nice nose-complex if a bit light

Body: medium

Taste: very fine

Aftertaste: nice-medium long

!8-18+/20 A bit high ??

Not close to the 70 F last week(Complexity).

But a very nice wine.

Last glass tonite but wanted more so I opened a 77Graham-may never had both the same nite?

The 77T was better but the 77G was bigger that surprised me.

John Vachon wrote:The 77T was better but the 77G was bigger that surprised me.

I like 77T, but like you I find it not to be the beast that I commonly think of Taylor being.

Nice note! Actually I find that older Taylor VPs can be quite medium bodied. Not all years are like that, but for me a lot are.

Comparing the 1977 Taylor to the 1970 Fonseca is unfair. I consider the 70 F to be one of the all time greats!

Eric Menchen wrote:

John Vachon wrote:The 77T was better but the 77G was bigger that surprised me.

I like 77T, but like you I find it not to be the beast that I commonly think of Taylor being.

The issue really seams to be bottle variation with this. Like the Fonseca, I've had great bottles of this and just average bottles. Adrian Bridge has stated there is a lot of variability in these wines, more so in the Taylor's. There doesn't seem to be any way of telling which, as bottles from the same case can show very differently. For the most part, I've stopped buying 77's due to this and other issues which really seem to have affected this great vintage.

That said the '77 Graham's has made a lot of turn around over the past few years. It's still has a good amount of spirit protruding, but much less than it did earlier in its life.

Andy Velebil wrote:It's still has a good amount of spirit protruding, but much less than it did earlier in its life.

Agreed. It's much better now than it was a few years ago.

77 SW has been consistently big, and 77 Warres consistently light/subtle, in my experience.

I believe Andy paints the 1977 vintage overall, with too broad a brush.

Roy Hersh wrote:I believe Andy paints the 1977 vintage overall, with too broad a brush.

Really? In what way?

Lets look at some of the top houses from this vintage. Out of the about 33 producers who declared here's 15 which could basically be regarded as the top of the vintage (with a few lesser houses tossed in). Or at least normally have a "top" reputation.

Taylor - Lots of bottle variation from just ok to great
Fonseca - see Taylors
Graham's - Very spirity and not up to par. Getting a little better but lets face it, at almost 40 years old it will never totally integrate and be great
Dow's - Lots of TCA issues
Sandeman - average and pretty much mature at this point
Noval - Opps, never mind LOL
Quarles Harris - average at best
Cockburn - Fantastic, but opps, they didn't declare it/sell it
Niepoort - Very good but pretty much peaked at this point
Warre's - Very slight bottle variation, but generally very good
Messias Qta d. Cachao - Average and fully mature or just past prime
Calem - average at best
Croft - Average at best
Smith Woodhouse - Outstanding
Gould Campbell - Outstanding (though some have reported TCA issues)

There is basically two or three which are fairly consistently very good to outstanding. It's pretty obvious there is an overall issue with this vintage, whatever the reason. I don't see why you're not willing to call a spade a spade.

I basically agree with you Andy. What I will say is the vintage is marked by extreme bottle variation, due to various factors. But when the bottles are good they are very good indeed!

I guess I haven't seen the extreme bottle variation that you guys have. I've yet to have a Taylor, Fonseca, Graham, Smith Woodhouse, Gould Campbell, or Niepoort that wasn't at least in the 92-point range. But on the flip side I don't think (but haven't confirmed) that I've ever rated any of those higher than 95. 92-95 doesn't seem like all that wide of a range to me to be complaining about extreme bottle variation. Rather, that seems pretty normal to me.

I have found far less bottle variation but that is likely because I bought my bottles way before most others here, and that likely led to far less buying/selling/shipping etc. that can ruin a good Port when exposing it to more frequent temperature variations etc.

Sure a few bottles of Fonseca, Taylor and others have not shown well, but I find that with 1970, 1955, 1963 and 1966, not to mention younger vintages too. When the top dozen of the 1977's are spot on they are pretty darn great. For example, the Dow 1977 that Andy, David and others have had such miserable experiences with, I have found mostly excellence with an occasional bad bottle cropping up.

My range is not as narrow as Glenn's as some of the top 1977's (for my palate) can absolutely reach above 95 points. Even those that don't but are 2nd tier and delicious VP's ... like Gould and Smith ... these are going to be very long lived and excellent Ports for several decades to come.

So you're going to say that the CEO of the company doesn't know what he's talking about? Because he's the one who has publicly said both have a lot of bottle variation, the Taylor's more so than the Fonseca. I'm sure he would know far better than you, Glenn, David, me, or anyone else.

When bottles were bought has nothing to do with it in this case.

But back to my original post, there isn't many that show consistently great. Key word being consistently.

Andy Velebil wrote:
But back to my original post, there isn't many that show consistently great. Key word being consistently.

Heck, I'd be happy just find a couple bottles that show no signs of seepage. Seems impossible, though