For The Love Of Port

My notes on this one were a little short as we were well underway into some good conversation, but....this was a ruby red with only some slight fading at the edge. The nose was very viscous toffee and a little hot. This was a little hot and simple at first, gaining weight and complexity the more it was opened. What surprised me the most was there was some very noticable tannins still on the palate. It had a long finish and although it was a good bottle, it never really wowed me. I wondered if this would have shown better with more decanting time as I didn't think it had enough time to integrate and really show its true potential. 93 points.
02/08/08

I opened a bottle of this wine yesterday, in preparation for a dinner at a friend's house. I double decanted it (poured into decanter, cleaned out bottle, returned it to the bottle for transportation) about 6 hours before it was served. The fill had been base neck.

The wine, in a word, was tremendous. It's fully mature, but showing no signs of breaking down. The color was more brown then red, actually more like a tawny. It started a little hot, but smoothened out in the glass pretty quickly. It was medium sweet, with flavors of chocolate and raspberries. This wine will hold together at least another 5 years, if not more, IMHO. It won't be improving however, so drinking now will be fine.

Have a Merry Christmas!

John Danza

Thanks John, glad to know with a longer decant it does gets better as I expected it would. When I took my TN, I knew it would be better with time as I could sense the structure in it, hense my 93 points. But without a longer decant it never reached it's true potential on the immediate palate gratification.