For The Love Of Port

I purchased 3 bottles of this to consume as "practice" for the 1st Annual Port Gala at the end of this month. Roy recommended a cheap LBV, and I'd tasted this at Pete's in Bellevue and liked it, so since it was actually cheaper than Graham's Six Grapes (which is "just" a Ruby Reserve) it seemed like a good choice.

2003 Taylor Fladgate LBV

This is a filtered LBV, so it's not meant for aging.

Very dark, almost opaque in the glass. Near the rim it takes on a deep ruby red tone which then fades rapidly to pink right at the rim. But the overall impression in the glass is of a young and very powerful VP.

The nose hints at black fruits, but with a touch of smoke and even a faint hint of... sausage? Some sort of cooked, spicy meat. It's faint, but it is also very much there. A deep, long inhale can bring out some alcohol... so don't do that! It's not at all apparent with a "normal" sniff.

My first impression as it hits my tongue is juicy! There is plenty of backbone behind it, but the tannins are not rough or forward. I suspect that's the filtering in action, and to me it's very nice. There are blackberries that I can discern, but not much else (besides a LOT of fruitiness).

Not much of a finish, but it doesn't really need one. This is for drinking, not sipping and savoring!

Glenn,
glad to see you are getting ready for the big event. But did you manage to consume all three in one night? You know that was what Roy ment by getting 3 bottles to practice :twisted:

No, he knows I'm too much of a lightweight for that. He recommended 2 glasses (or was it 2 bottles?) every night until the big event.

I've been cheating the last couple of nights and drinking the glasses with/around dinner. Starting next week I'm going to have the Port an hour of two after dinner so that I'm not quite as "buffered" from the effects. And then the week before the event I'm going to add a glass of tawny to the nightly ritual!

Hopefully that will be enough to get me through the 50-odd bottles we're going to be drinking in 3 days!

Some time between the 3rd and 4th days this bottle picked up a little bit of milk chocolate, both in the mouth feel and in the taste.

It started out with a very juicy feel in the mouth - much like you would expect from a glass of Welch's Grape Juice - but that has smoothed out over time and was very silky (thus the milk chocoloate) on the last day. If I pulled air through it into my mouth (making a loud slurping noise which greatly amused my dogs) I could detect a little bit of very fine milk chocolate in the flavor as well.