FIT TO BE FORTIFIED

WINE TALK
1

It was a wild weekend of Port & Madeira with a couple of other fun bottles thrown into the mix for fun.

Just a brief comment on each, full TNs will appear in my newsletter:

1963 Quinta do Noval Nacional - opened the first night of arrival (Thurs.) - fantastic youngster with 40 years of upside po.
1988 Dom. Roumier Chambolle-Musigny - I loved having a fully mature Burg in fine condition from the likes of Roumier, even if it wasn’t the greatest vintage. Nice showing!
1896 Dow Vintage Port - I am not one to upgrade scores because a bottle of VP is old, but this deserved 100 points.
1934 Quinta do Noval VP - Never saw this before, although it was my bottle. Excellent showing … even following the 1896.
1955 Clos Fourtet - a fully mature St. Emilion bottling that was an excellent warm up prior to Ports. Still in prime time.
1979 Cristal Champ. - I know nothing about the vintage, but if you enjoy old bubbly, this really was in great condition.
1924 Taylor Vintage Port - I’ve had better bottles of this in the past. Lovely and fully mature, saturated cork. Slightly hot.
1962 Graham’s Malvedos Vintage Port - Good but nothing special. I expected more from this bottle. Others liked it more.
1963 Fonseca Vintage Port - a solid bottling but not up to the greatness that the F63 can achieve from perfect bottles.
1966 Dow Vintage Port - This is always a treat and the second bottle I’ve had in the past couple of months. Good showing.

Madeira:

1890 Leacock Sercial - controversial due to its bone-dry style. I liked it a lot, there were some that hated it due to dryness.
1795 Barbeito Terrantez - A near perfect bottle, if the aromatics had been more profound, it would have achieved 100 pts.
1912 Barbeito Bual - Qta de Sao Joao - It was better 15 mins after the 1795, as it needed to be judged on its own. Yummy!
1880 Blandy’s Malvasia - shockingly fresh and a beautiful wine from a pristine bottle. Great way to end the Madeiras.

These were consumed at different times in different flights over the course of 3 consecutive evenings. A great mix of old and young fortified wines.

2

Nice line-up Roy! '88 was a pretty good vintage for Burgundy btw, just on the hard side, with many wines still not fully “ready”! And it seems to have marked a turnaround in the overall winemaking, with that and subsequent vintages being fresher and longer-lived, maybe due to more careful attention to oxygen exposure prior to bottling.

3

Very nice. Though I must admit as a new Berserker it still freaks me out whenever a board member here posts TNs and/or their experiences with a wine from the freakin’ 1800’s and it’s actually still GOOD and doesn’t kill them by eating through their bodies like battery acid.

4

Tran,

That’s why I included one from the late 1700’s, I figured that going from the 1800’s to the 1700’s might prevent you from being freaked out at all. Fortified wines can and typically do age considerably longer than their non-fortified counterparts. That is why Madeira at 100 years of age, is still considered young. These are different beasts.

5

Wow. And one more time… Wow. That’s it, I’m moving to Seattle.

Thanks Roy!

6

63 is my birth year and I want to have the Nacional on my 50th.

7

Tran,
Good Madeira always has high acid, not necessarily enough to eat through your body, but a lot to balance the extreme richness.

Roy,
No note on that 1959 Beerenauslese?

8

Jeb,

Please stay in Colorado. If you moved here, you’d tip the scales and my Port consumption would be in excess. [drinkers.gif]

9

Roy is at it again.
Nice lineup.

10

Eric,

I was pretty underwhelmed by the oxidative note and lack of acidity in that '59 Riesling. Not really worthy of inclusion.