For The Love Of Port

1987 Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas

Drank on 09 October 2008 at The Bell offline. Decanted for about 1 hour, then poured back into its bottle and drunk several hours later. A very dark red, the nose was mostly closed though I did manage to coax some black pastilles out of my glass. The mouthfeel was powerful, tight and tannic, the brooding ripeness hinting at needing further bottle ageing before unleashing its full force. When it was revealed, we were all surprised that a so-called ‘off-vintage’ Port can show this much potential. I will leave my bottles to age for as many years as I can. 93/100.

Yeah this is a very nice bottle. And as stated elsewhere, its arguably the best Taylors of the 80's.

Taylor's Vargellas 1987

I did open this during the week end and drank it over the 2 days. I did not devant it as I knew it was going to sit int he bottle for several hours.

Fairly muted upon serving, after 6 hours, it started to reveal a fresh, complex aromatic palate of flowers, garden herbs, licorice, plums and chocolate. This was starting to look like a real youngster. The color though was translucide, showing evolved rim(5mm) of tawny/garnet color with ruby/garnet color in the middle. From the entry on the palate, sweet and smooth, flavours of licorice and flower scent. Then tannins kicks in, ripping all the freshness and leaving flavours of dried leaf, tobacco, dates leading to a dry finish of finely grained tannins and candied fruits. I could only wish that the nose and the palate where not in such a distinct phase for the flavours profiles. This could be an in between phase were in 5-8 years the tannins could just leave the place to great complexity and a balanced velvety mid palate could bring great things to this Port. Right now I'd give 17.5-18 for the nose but 16.5-17 for the palate. So lets give it room and see where it can go! 17?/20+ 2009-10-25

Frederick,

I enjoyed reading your tasting note. I love this VP, drink it at least 1x per year and always find it a wild youthful ride and almost in the same league as 1985 Fonseca. I said, "almost" as the stuffing is definitively there to prove that there's a ton of fruit and structure to carry this not only for many years, but with steady uphill improvement down the road.

YMMV.