For The Love Of Port

26th Anniversary - 20 Dec 2009

3:00 PM

Opened for decanting; expecting to drink around 8:00 PM

The first thing I noticed was this wine had two capsules. A nice clean outer foil capsule (black), and a thin, blue inner foil capsule that had a bit of crystalline deposit inside.

(sorry about the blur)

After watching Suckling's success with a "Keep Screwing" opener on YouTube, I decided to try mine (which has mostly been decorative). It worked very well, pulling a fragile cork in one piece.
I might file out the "teeth" and vanes, intended to keep the cork from rotating as it withdraws. I can hold the cork with my fingers and damage it less.



Into a wide decanter via cheesecloth a la Roy. Not much sediment came out, but was fairly heavy when I rinsed the bottle.

A tiny sip brought a warm soft cherry (no tartness) and a hint of chocolate. I'd drink this now and feel blessed, but I had better save some for the "other half" of the anniversary.

(Me and the other half in a fast turn.)

(second installment)
6:30
Funneled it back into a thoroughly rinsed bottle and T-capped it. Off to the restaurant.
Tipping up the empty decanter for the last few drops. Much like when just opened.

(third installment)
8:45
Finished dinner and addressed ourselves to the port. Poured from the bottle.

Almost no aroma from the glass. The unanimous opinion: "No Nose"
We all liked it, but it wasn't very exciting - not much complexity.

I found Wild Cherry and slightly medicinal flavors, almost like an old-fashioned cough-drop (none of this modern eucalyptus).
A bit later, cocoa solids (what you have left when you subtract cocoa butter from chocolate).
A slightly astringent finish.

Eva:
"Extremely red" (it was)
"Fresh wood." (??? "It tastes like freshly cut wood {seasoned wood} smells.")
"Traverse City Cherries" (They grow a particularly luscious red cherry in Northern Michigan; it is a red/tart/cooking/pie cherry, but very mouth-filling; source of much of the canned cherries in the US; most people never get to taste them until after they have been drowned in sugar.)

By 9:30 even the flavors were fading.

I now wonder if I decanted this too early; it was so good when I first opened it.

(finished)

Peter,

Congratulations to you and Eva on your Anniversary!

IMO, I do not think that 6.5 hours of decanting for this still youthful VP is too much. I am not sure what went wrong with the Port in that bottle, but it should have just been starting to show at its best around then. Very odd. What you noticed earlier on, is what I typically find late in the game with this specific VP. It is not a blockbuster but a Port of finesse. That said it is usually long on the finish and really young.

Peter,
I somehow missed this post earlier. Congrats on the anniversary! I too am not sure what went wrong as normally this is a very nice bottle of Warre's. But bottle variation does happen and so does storage issues along the way, so who knows if any of those were the culprits. Of course the "no nose" issue could have been a result of a low level TCA taint.

BTW, the Symington's used to use the double capsules as the ones stored in their cellars were without label and capsules (referred to as Shiners). The plastic typically had the houses name and vintage on it, on the top. I've been told they no longer will be doing the plastic under capsule anymore.