TN: 1970 Graham Porto Vintage (Portugal, Douro, Porto)

  • 1970 Graham Porto Vintage - Portugal, Douro, Porto (4/25/2012)
    Fully mature, the color being brown but healthy. The wine had an odd nose of moth balls mixed in with sweet plums. Perhaps the bottle was flawed, but it was still a pleasant wine with sweet plums and only a little heat from the alcohol on the palate. This one was acquired upon release and stored in excellent conditions from that time, so I can’t explain the odd nose. It was good with the chocolate mousse dessert. (88 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Having had this VERY recently, I can tell you that the bottle we had (ex-cellars) was still bright ruby with only a modicum of bricking on the rim. Guaranteed from the color alone your bottle was not right. The only thing I can surmise, given what you’ve written about the provenance is that some air made its way into the bottle which can give some serious bottle stink on older Ports. So were YOU the one who purchased this on release in 1972 or 1973 … about 40 years ago?

The first couple bottles I ever had were off a bit, and probably an 87 or 88 like yours.
Roy however convinced me the wine rocked, and I’ve had 2 bottles since, and indeed they have. Still youthfull from pristine bottles!

Jeez, does my picture make me look that old?? [basic-smile.gif]

No, it was bought by the man that was the cellarer for the IWFS Chicago branch for a couple of decades. He’s in his late 70s now, and apparently has quite a port collection. I didn’t get a chance to talk to others who had pours from the other bottles we had, but it sure didn’t seem right. The weird smell didn’t affect the flavors, although it sounds like there were some flavors that should have been there that weren’t. Bummer.

Sounds like a bad bottle.

I bought a case of this 7 or 8 years ago, and they have all been excellent, without one problem bottle.

Easily 92-94pts range, and really lovely drinking…

Paul is a tough grader. When at its best, Graham’s is a top 4 VP of the extraordinary 1970 vintage.

Sadly I would also conclude there was something wrong with the Port you tasted. I had this vintage in a double vertical of Graham’s vs. Dow last October, direct from their cellars and this VP was still a ruby red with youthful fruit and a good potential ahead of it. I also would put it in the short list of the top VP’s from this vintage.