For The Love Of Port

Bottled in 1996

Cross-posting from TPF, which is where this Old & Odd tasting was organized.

Quinta do Infantado Vintage Character Port
bottled in 1996

Look: Dark and purple-red. Definitely a Ruby Port.

Nose: Red fruit. Mildly sour, but in a good way. I'd call it citrus, but that's not quite right.

Taste: Red. Rather one dimensional, but easy to drink. It's nice, but that's all. Can't really find anything bad to say about it, but then again can't really find anything good to say about it either.

Finish: almost none.

As plain as it was, I still rated this #8 ahead of the 1873 Schofield. I did notice that when tasting head-to-head, the V.C. didn't really change (probably because it was so simple) but that it could have a significant effect on how the others tasted.

Well, you don't see many 12 year old bottlings of Vintage Character still floating around. At least it was still drinkable, but then again I've had a few really old bottlings of filtered Ports that were not ment to age and they were still surprisingly drinkable.

The general concensus at the table was that it was quite bad, but I disagreed. The 1873 Schofield was bad... this was merely not good.

I doubt I would choose this Port to sip after dinner, but I just might choose it to drink with dinner. If I'm looking to enjoy the food, then the wine just needs to enhance that enjoyment and I think that this one dimensional old Vintage Character Port would do that just fine.

Infantado ports are quite dry and suited well for food.