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From the ‘Emergency’ 1985 horizontal on Wednesday 26th December 2007, in which we tasted Dow 1985, Infantado 1985, two bottles of Ramos Pinto 1985, Graham 1985, Warre 1985, Croft 1985, and Offley 1968 Colheita.

The following day, Thursday 27th December 2007, these bottles were joined by Taylor 1985 and Andresen 1985.

Also see the review of the evening as a whole, and thread in which this tasting was arranged.

Ramos Pinto 1985: on 25th December, at 10am, I opened a Ramos Pinto 1985 (see Christmas day drinking), and this was compared to another bottle from the same batch decanted at 7pm today.

And my, was the newer bottle better! Neither had much nose, but the ‘older decanter’ was bitter to smell. This tasted far better the day before. The newer bottle, though needing a few hours in the decanter, was smoother and fruitier and fuller and better.

We finished the older decanter (out of tidiness): tomorrow we’ll see whether today’s newer becomes tomorrow’s less-good older.

two nights of RP.

The younger RP had loads more fruit, body and sweetness then the older one.

Slight nose, with reddish fruit, cherries?

sweeti but a bit heavy, the older one had a milk chocolate finish of 20 seconds.

the newer RP had lush sweet fruits with a hint of nutmeg with a finihs of 30 seconds.

Both ports showed no heat and were very smooth

Hangover gone; glasses cleaned; dinner cooking. Time to write-up my tasting notes.

On the second day the later-decanted Ramos Pinto (so this bottle at 24 hours) was nicely opaque, darkly red, with a lovely plum nose. Still some heat, and—like the Infantado—clinging to the mouth with an oily mouthfeel. A little lighter than perfect, and too short a finish, but chocolatey and still very fine.

I liked the Ramos Pinto 1985 very much. Nicely purple color, nose sweet and somewhat floral. Good chocolaty flavor, rich, really quite solid. Still somewhat tannic with a bit of a caramel finish. Very good. 91 pts.