The third time was at the BBR offline, August 2005. Finally, I bothered to make some notes:
I first tried the "not so great bottle": A bit light in color, not much fruit on the nose, only some older notes. A difficult port to taste; it seems like the fruit is only just emerging, it has to struggle to get out there. It's nicely layered and has good structure, but probably in an odd phase, or a bit of an off bottle.
Then the "quite spectacular bottle": Color is much better than the first bottle, much younger looking and darker. So fresh and lively on the nose, with very ripe blackcurrant, forest fruit jam and some fennel. I would just keep smelling this if the taste wasn't so darn good! Again really fresh with vibrant fruit. Not a massive port, but it's built on subtlety and graciousness. It keeps going on and on. This is what port is all about. My no. 1 of the evening.
