For The Love Of Port

I consulted our tasting notes and I could not find any notes on the 1980 Ferreira which surprised me a little. I am opening a bottle for a Friday wine lunch group that I attend and I will post on it. Does any one have a note on it ?

We did have this one at the MTL offline back in the fall 2007. It was ok but nothing exceptionnal. Looking more like an old tany than a VP. Moses was stating that the bottle has been standing for many years up. This could have leave to an unexpectly quick oxydation.

I found a Cellar Tracker note giving it a 92. This bottle has been on its side in my cellar for several years. Hopefully we will have better results than the MTL offline,

This turned out to be a very elgant port liked by the 9 people who tasted it blind. It was double decanted, had lots of sediment and the cork fell through when the ah so was applied. It had a clear ruby color, a great bouquet of baked raspberries and cinnamon nutmeg spices. A great mouth entry fully coated the palate, more berry flavors, and a long finish. Lots of cooked sweet pastry dough flavors. Some guessing blind thought it was a 94 Dow or younger port. It had been opened 16 hours when tasted. The alcohol was blown off. Lots of heavy sediment. I gave it 93 points, others thought it rated higher.

It is in prime shape and needs no more age but will last many more years.

Your bottle is much different than my case according to your TN's. Roy said this port was always quite light looking and that my case probably did not suffer much, but I may beg to differ. Not that I found my case to be poor, just an unusual circumstance creating a tawny like port. I think Alex B. also had the '80 Ferreira here and enjoyed it too.

Not sure I ever took TN's on this vintage.

Admittedly it has been a number of years since I had this particular bottling, having done my share of several deep Ferreira verticals over the years. It has never been a stand out and I was surprised that someone confused this with a Dow, given their "polar opposite styles." From memory the '80 Ferreira is quite sweet in style and round whereas the Dow typically has much drier fruit. That said, not all bottles are tawny like. I've had them directly from the source and they were elegant, light and sweet with good charm but very typical of the Ferreira style which I think would appeal very much to Alex B.

Some of the guesses were way off in our Friday group but while many of them like port and collect it, it is our weakness in our palate memory. The group IS consistent on quality and this 1980 Ferreria was a very fine bottle which supports the adage that there are no great vintages of wine but only great individual bottles of wine.