1985 Fonseca

Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Alex Bridgeman
Graham’s 1948
Posts: 14880
Joined: 13:41 Mon 25 Jun 2007
Location: Berkshire, UK

1985 Fonseca

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

By the glass (£8.75) from the Oxford & Cambridge Club. Deep red colour with an opaque centre. Spirity on the nose, smelling of slightly stewed fruit. Rich and deep entry with powerful dark fruit, reminding me of bruised black cherries and high cocoa milk chocolate. The chocolate tannins support the fruit and give nice structure. The palate has some good complexity but the overall impression is of a slightly stewed port. There is a lot of heat on the aftertaste and some painful levels of acidity, but these eventually settle down to a lovely sour cherry and dark chocolate finish of such tremendous length that I could still taste an hour later on the train on the way home. I suspect that this bottle had been decanted rather too long ago to be at its best, but it was still very enjoyable. 89/100. Drunk 06-Oct-16.
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.

2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
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