Having a small family get together in Isle of Palms (SC) and the wife’s aunt brought along this bottle of 1934 C. Da Silva Port (bottled in 1973). I’ve scoured the depth and breadth of worldly wine knowledge (aka WB website and google) and all I can find is the Da Silva web site but no info on this bottle. We’re planning on cracking it open, I was hoping to add a little insight, any help would be appreciated.
Casa da Silva is what is now generally known as Dalva (sold under the Presidential name here in the USA). This would be a Colheita from 1934, bottled in 1973. They used to use this weird shaped bottle for their older tawny’s, and still use it for their very limited production Arguardente (brandy).
In my experience with these older da Silva’s is they tend to be hazy if moved around too much, the very fine sediment older tawny’s often get when held in bottle a long time. It should be still good, if stored well, but probably has lost some of it’s youthful freshness.
Hope that helps a little
Andy, tx for the info! There’s definitely a decent amount of sediment on the bottom. Not sure how well this has been stored. I’m guessing it’s been in my Aunt’s house sitting on a side bar, upright and room temp so I’m not expecting a lot upon opening but the education will be worth something. I’ll post some notes after we open it up.
Roger,
Last year I had a bottle of 1937 Da Silva Vintage Tawny Port that was bottled in 1972. It was excellent.
My note below.
Cheers
Jeremy
Smells of an Indian spice market. Now as I have never been to India let alone a f*cking spice market in this country you are going to have to grant me a bit of poetic licence. It also has notes of raisins and chocolate and is cut by a fine floral spirit. It is fine and elegant with incredible length of flavour.
Your note gave me a good laugh this morning. Well done!
Jeremy, I saw your note while searching this forum, for some reason I kind of got the Indian spice market reference, which is giving me some pause but we’ll forge ahead.
Looks like we’ll be opening this up this evening, might have to take a stroll through the eastern spice section of the grocery before hand.
We popped the cork last night. The cork was very soft and crumbled under the cork screw, wish I had my ah-so but I managed to remove it almost intact. A strong vanilla scent came wafting out of the bottle along with a good hit of butterscotch. In the glass the wine is brown but clear, the color of strong tea. There isn’t much acid here and the tannins are very light but the finish is long. I asked the group for their impressions and this is what was said:
oaked butterscotch, plum, vanilla, whisky, burned apricots, alcohol soaked raisins, prune/pomegranate juice, carmel, toasted coconut, candied hazelnuts, molasses, rum soaked fruitcake.
All in all, a very enjoyable experience.
Roger, those impressions sound just about right. It looks like the wine survived any storage issues there may have been. Thanks for sharing.
Glad it showed well!