For The Love Of Port

From a 375 ml bottle and tasted over 4 nights and kept in an open decanter
After 8 hrs in the decanter - sweet spice, pepper rosewater on the nose. Sweet to taste and I got some prominent dried fruit - currants and raisins. firm long tannins.
At 32 hours - Similar nose to 24 hours earlier but more intense. Notes of black tea with the tannins being big long and a little more integrated.
At 56 hours - A little earthiness has crept into the nose - cinnamon replaced with cassia. Overall the port is more fruit bright and there is a little more acidity evident. Tannins override the the mid palate and are forceful.
At 80 hrs - has come together really nicely. Not so much spice on the nose or palate now, but there was some cherry and plum. A more fruity mid palate and overall it is much more integrated. The tannins still had length but weren't so aggressive.
I was unimpressed on day 1 and had it at 89 but it showed steady improvement over the 4 days to evolve into something rather lovely. Given it was better on day 4 this bodes well for the future. 93 points

Paul Fountain wrote:... cinnamon replaced with cassia.

Now there's a fine distinction. I use true cinnamon in my Khmer cooking, and am now wondering how well I could distinguish those in a Port. Hmmmm. Thanks for the note.

Nice note!

Eric Menchen wrote:

Paul Fountain wrote:... cinnamon replaced with cassia.

Now there's a fine distinction. I use true cinnamon in my Khmer cooking, and am now wondering how well I could distinguish those in a Port. Hmmmm. Thanks for the note.

While I work in I.T. these days, while I was studying I spent years working as a baker and a couple of years as a pastry chef. I got to see a lot of cassia and cinnamon, and you definitely notice more earthiness on the cassia. "Coffee scrolls" are a pretty standard bakery product here, that are like cinnamon scrolls contain some or all cassia as it is a lot cheaper than cinnamon.

I very much enjoyed reading your impression Paul.