For The Love Of Port

1980 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port:
I chose this one since it was this months Virtual Tasting. The color was a dark ruby with no fading. Although not showing its 28 years of age in the color, the nose was fully mature. Lots of soft flowers, licorise, and bing cherries. Athough full bodied, it was soft and had some bite to it. There was a lot of acidity to it, yet it was lacking the fruit on the palate to support it. That left the body just slightly out of balance. The finish was very long and full with some explosive cocoa beans. As time went on this started to fall apart and lost some of that grip that it had early on. I thought this VP had grown old without totally growing up. The first bottle of this I’ve had so I don’t know if this is typical of all the bottles or just this one. At its peak I gave it 90-91 points. 12/27/08

I've had several experiences over the years, but most recently, I have found T80 to be reaching maturty too. It certainly does not seem "fully mature" or in any dire need to be consumed soon, however I have also enjoyed the secondary nuances of this particular VP. These are typically a good bargain when you can find them being sold, which is not all that often.

I had recently got this and don't know the full history behind it regarding storage, although the bottle was in perfect condition visually. I'm guessing it was probably not a perfect representation of this bottle as this showed fully mature. I have a second bottle that has the newest style of TFP labels, so it appears to be a recent ex-cellars release. I'm curious to try that one now just to compare the bottles and see if they are the same or different.