TN: Grahams Port 1955 - 1985

Notes on a tasting of Grahams Port from 4 decades (every declared vintage between 1955 and 1985) .
This was arranged by Jim Robertson of Vancouver BC, from bottles collected by him here and abroad.

1955 – a browning tawny colour and a sweet nutty nose with hints of anise. Smooth mellifluous entry with a bit of heat, sweet clean and long on palate. Lovely elegant wine at peak.

1960 – a sweet toffee nose, with tea notes, mellow entry but a tad acidic on palate, still enjoyable but I judged it to be in gentle decline now.

1963 – at last a wine with some red in the colour. Somewhat alcoholic nose, nutty and complex, smooth and long on palate with lingering notes of chocolate and nutmeg. Excellent!

1966 – a nice medium lambent red colour and a killer nose that included spicy wood, figs, and smoky Madeira. The finish was silky, long and had more nutmeg spice. Superlative Port at peak.

1970 – sadly, this wine was showing TCA. Which means that you never know where on the scale the corkiness may affect the taste of the wine. Some very decent stuffing and some interesting bits in the nose, but who knows what it might have been in perfect shape?

1975 – many people disparage this vintage, but I was quite grateful for it as it served as filler, and rather pleasurable filler in my cellar during the years that one sat patiently waiting for the 1977 to come on song. This bottle was back to a more tawny colour, and had a fairly spirit nose, and some pleasant spice on palate, if a regrettably short finish.

1977 – a serious dark wine with more red than brown, and an initial sweet toffee nose that developed to show notes of tar and cocoa with time, and some heat the gave it slightly edgy feel. The finish was notable by still gripping tannin. Excellent, and one wonders if an additional decade of age may persuade it to follow the more polite habits of the 1966 in due course. I’ve tasted this periodically over the last two decades and am far more impressed with the potential now than I was early on! Wish I’d bought more….

1980 – my experience with this vintage is much more limited, so this was interesting. I noted pears, raisins and anise in the nose, a veritable Christmas pudding of a wine. It had a smooth entry with tannic finish that clamped down tightly. Needs time.

1983 – the darkest colour, with purple creeping into the red. Nose a bit reticent but some interesting plum flavours on palate, followed by a hot tannic finish. I think this one shows excellent promise.

1985 – unlike the grippy 83, this wine was a friendly youth that drank as if it were much longer in bottle, with great harmony of flavour as well as structure. Very enticing and drinking really well now with some chocolate notes showing up after extensive airing. I believe that this will become a remarkable port if it doesn’t all get drunk up too soon by those beguiled by the way it shows already!

That is a great bottle, but maybe I’m biased because it’s a birth year Port.

Pity, because I enjoy the '70 as much as the '66.

This didn’t show overpowering vanilla?

Not a big fan of either vintage, but any Graham’s is better than no Graham’s.

Shazam! Total agreement that this vintage will eventually become the cream of the crop among the flight you’ve posted. I don’t think 1994 nor even 2003 will meet the standard set by 1985.

Thanks for the notes!

I only have the 1985 Grahams on the list from this tasting. Thanks for the notes and helping me to resist the temptation to open one soon!

Agree that it is a fantastic VP.

Thanks,
Ed

We also did a Grahams vertical in New York two months ago. The report is here:

You had all six that we had plus a few more. The 1955 was our star.

Thanks for the extensive vertical report!

Your note on the 1977 is very similar to my impressions of the '77 I had about a year ago.

Excellent recap and sounded like a wonderful time.

Do you know how long they were decanted for?

1980 is outstanding, sadly it suffers from a fairly high corked rate. Glad you got to see it in all it’s glory.

1977 is a controversial topic, depending on who you talk to people either love it or are middle of the road with it. It has always been their weakest VP (sans '75) post WW2. Though it has come round and improved a touch in recent years it will never be great IMO.

1975 was a fantastic vintage. Marred only by the producers making 3 times as much VP as they ever had in the past. Done solely to save the industry and small farmers in the Douro from collapse producers bought basically everything they could get their hands on. As a result, we have 1975 VP. Nice mature VP’s to drink up soon.

Bummer on the 1970, a fantastic vintage for them.

I love the '66 and think it’s a better wine than the '63. '63 vintage as whole has the reputation though and that’s hard for some to overcome. IMO '66 is a better vintage than '63 as a whole but '66 was considered the “peasant vintage” because no one bought it early on and it was sold cheaply in Portugal and consumed young. There is a reason they are hard to find now days.

the 1960’s, across the board, are mature if not past best a little. Some have had a slight resurgence the past couple years, but by and large most are on a slow decline. As for the Graham’s there is some bottle variation now based on good Port friends reports. Two bottles I had last year showed mature but not on a decline at all. Sounds like yours showed more advanced than some others. When this is on it’ll rock your world. And they are quite hard to find nowadays, as are most 1960’s, so glad you guys were able to try it.

My two TN’s on the 1960 from last year (April and August);

Decanted about 3 hours. Soft and sweetly textured with loads of Christmas cake spices, cigar box, and dried fruit. The long similar finish didn’t disappoint. A wonderful VP that is fully mature and on a good plateau where it should remain for many more years.
95 Points

Decanted 4 hours. I can’t recall having this for about 4-5 years, if not longer. A sweet attractive nose of spices, leather, lavender, and dried cherries. The sweet palate still retains just a hint of fruit over laid with allspice, cigar tobacco, and some eucalyptus. A subtle and long finish caps off this fully mature Vintage Port. While I don’t see this getting better from here, well stored bottles are on a nice plateau where they should stay for another 5-10 years before slowly sliding into a more tawny phase.
93 Points

Jim had a split tasting, so decanted the wines the first day and immediately put half into a sealed half bottle for the second day and used the other half for the first day. I was there on the second day, which to my mind was preferable - he’d uncorked them earlier in the day for more air.

One comment - I have always thought the policy of not declaring too many vintages to be a poor one - some houses would declare and then the next year would produce some decent wine worthy of being vintage Port, yet they’d use it for other wines rather than declaring two years in a row. You could get a decent vintage followed immediately by an even better vintage and the second might not be declared by the houses that had declared the first, while the houses that didn’t declare the first vintage would hit it big by declaring the second, better vintage.

Fortunately this policy which results in only around 3 vintages a decade seems to have been varied in recent years.

On the 1977, we did a 1977 horizontal 10 years ago. I remember that the Grahams was delayed in delivery so we did not have it, but I did some research and apparently there’s a lot of bottle variation. I do not remember the details, but supposedly some bottles are great and others are very bad.

Excellent notes Bill. I tried to post mine the day after the event but had computer problems.

I really liked the 66, as I did at Jim’s Taylor tasting a few years ago. Oddly the 70 was corked that day as well. The 85 is destined to be an all time great. I also loved the 77 and found no obvious vanilla. I do remember Drew M saying that on Friday it didn’t show very well.

I agree. thankfully that old system is very quickly going away. Some amazing vintages, like 1987, should have been declared and were not.

The only 87 I have is 1987 Cockburn Porto Quinta do Tua, which has been a workmanlike but not outstanding example.

Cockburn’s VP’s were going through a really rough patch during that time. Try the Malvedos if you can find one. Or Niepoort (if it you get a bottle that doesn’t have VA), Souza, Taylor’s Vargellas, and Roeda. All made really good SQVP’s in '87.

I have the 87 bracketed - have both the 86 and 88 Malvedos - both are very good.

Yes, I really like the 86 Malvedos as well. IMO the '87 version is similar in flavor profile to the 86 but with more depth, structure, and youthfulness.

And 1982 was a decent vintage as well and lots of producers declared it even though it wasn’t a “Classic declaration.” They aren’t the blockbusters that '87s are but are in a nice drinking spot for drinking right now.

Sadly down to a single bottle of 82 and drank up all my 78 awhile ago…

Thank you for your notes, I am very happy with the 1977 and 1985 vintages

I’ve not had great luck with '78 SQVP’s…even discounting those bottles with faulty corks.