TN: Dennis Daringa Cellars Old Tawny -- Fortified Wine of the Year!

WINE TALK
#1

Berserkers,

I just cracked open something truly amazing, perhaps the single best Tawny Port I’ve ever had to date and it hails from… McLaren Vale, Australia. I just had to post the note on this criminally underrated and under-publicized beauty of a Tawny Port.

DENNIS DARINGA OLD TAWNY – A 35 year old Tawny Port from Australia made from Grenache and Shiraz wines. Dark brown sugar color, nose of burnt sugar caramel, full-bodied in the mouth, and an absolutely amazing taste of burnt sugar caramel, toffee, ripe plums and cherries. Beautifully integrated heat and a great burnt sugar finish that lingers on and on.

This wine is as great as any 30 year old Tawny from Portugal I’ve ever had and is so well-done that the might even come up short in a blind taste-test. I would only ever classify the Taylor Fladgate 30 Year Old as definitively 100% better because it’s richer but that’s the only one. The Dennis Daringa Old Tawny definitely holds its own against all the others.

Keep in mind I still have to try my Kopke and Offley 30 year olds which are very highly regarded as well and they might rank higher. Hell, it’s all subjective and you might rank your own favorite 30 year Tawny Port higher as well. But you’ll never be able to match the QPR of this one.

Here’s the really impressive part: this wine currently goes for one-third the price of the average quality 30 year old Portuguese Tawny Port currently on the market at either the LCBO and the SAQ in Montreal. It has been criminally neglected by the LCBO and now put on clearance sale which makes it even more amazing of a deal!

This absolutely insane QPR ratio immediately makes this my 2012 Fortified Wine of the Year and maybe even the overall 2012 Wine of the Year. Thank God I tried this before the year ended because I plan to clean out the LCBO of a number of bottles now that I’ve had this. Absolutely amazing stuff. [cheers.gif]