The most recent addition to our team, Yannick, had his birthday and was generous enough to treat us all with 2 pies. So for this week’s tasting we chose a good companion for these : vintage port from 3 different vintages and producers.
Chronologically, from young to old (with an incredible ageing potential the terms young and old are quite different compared to those applicable for non fortified wines) they were :
1978 Krohn vintage port This particular bottle had a problem with its cork: it hadn’t survived the 3-three and a half decades of cellaring and had started to leak somewhere along the line resulting in a fill level well below the shoulder. Now if this were an oxidized fortified wine such as sherry, this probably wouldn’t be an issue, however with a port I had no previous experience with such low levels and was anxious to find out how it had effected the content. 1978 was quite a good vintage but mostly overlooked since following the infamous 1977 vintage so that at least worked in its favor. The wine had the color of dark tea with just a hint of cherry red in the rim. Being exposed to this much oxygen in the bottle clearly had accelerated it reaching the end of its lifespan : smells here were very limited and overpowered by alcohol. There was just a slight aroma of tea and tar detectable, accompanied by overripe fruit (banana oddly enough ) competing with a greenish vegetal note (geranium). Drinking this was no great pleasure either: the wine had become completely flat, it was very light with only some of the sweetness remaining and finishing faster than Usain Bolt on his best day. Since it was lacking in quality the short aftertaste perhaps wasn’t too bad a thing.
1970 Kopke vintage port: This vintage was declared by most of the major houses, so quite a good year and with Kopke not being the least this should be good. With the color the age was already showing : a lighter tea here with an orange hue in the outer edge. After the first alcohol dissipated (in tasting port it’s better not to whirl the wine around like you normally would : this only makes the alcohol evaporate and covers up the nicer aromas you’re looking for) the sweeter smells emerge firstly, grapes and raisins combined with maple syrup. A touch of something medicinal like a cough syrup here too with also some more appealing aromas of spicebox and walnuts. After a while in the glass there was also a hint of toffee and some roasted aromas of freshly ground coffee. This was a very lovely to drink, very sweet but decent acidity kept it from being overly sweet. It had a nice woody undertone and finished with caramel and again the roast flavors. Very nice indeed.
1960 Sera’s vintage port: This was the stranger in our midst : 1960 was a vintage that was also widely declared but lots of producers struggled with bad conditions that year and had either low yields or compromised quality. The estate itself is somewhat of a mystery: hardly any information about it is to be found and if I’m not mistaking they sold their best plots to the Real Companhia Velha somewhere in the 60ies who then later on decided to sell them in 1970. Here the color was a light maroon or pomegranate.Not very complex at first whiff, but after a while some fruitiness was still detectable : plums, dates and dried figs accompanied with fragrances of tar and black tea and even a mineral quality to it with the odor of crushed rock. This was all very promising, but drinking it sadly didn’t quite reflect that. This port just wasn’t balanced out at all : overly sweet and the harsh burn of way too much alcohol made it very heavy. This is ok if you’re applying to be a fire breather but just a bit too much for enjoyment at high tea.
