For The Love Of Port

1983 Taylors Port – not as hot as the last bottle I had, fairly sweet, medium length, reasonably complex and well balanced. I had thought from the colour that it might be a 1970 as it was paler than I’d expected and more developed. Just a bit disappointing given my high expectations for this house.

Bill,

Sadly Taylor's did not produce great Ports during the 1980s with the exception being the 1987 Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas. The 1985 is a good upper 80s point wine, but the 1983 was significantly weaker. Even the typically great house of Fonseca missed it in 1983, with a decent effort but nothing near the level of say, 1985.

Your post will proabably be moved to port tasting notes but I have commented many times how the Taylor 83 and 85 are not the same as previous or subsequent Taylor's. It is quite disappointment especailly with as many 83 Taylor I have since it our anniversary year.

Richard,

It could be a lot worse, you could own cases of 1983 Cockburn's and have a reasonable chance of a TCA infected bottle, any time you popped one for your anniversary. I hope you have lots of Graham's 1983 and should really look to score some Gould Campbell and Smith Woodhouse from that vintage.