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Provided by JDAW and decanted for 5½ hours. Mid-red colour, orange on the rim. Redcurrants and licorice on the nose, smelling to be mature and ready, some dustiness. Harsh on entry with some soft tannins showing in the mid-palate, along with a lot of fruit - raspberries in orange juice - and a nice acidic backbone. The aftertaste is slow to start and contains lots of strawberries, long and enjoyable. A decent port on its own but fades in the company in which it was served. 3/3 or 91/100. Drunk 8/2/08.

Edit by jdaw1 in July 2015, adding links to: TPF review thread; FTLoP commentary; FTLoP planning thread; placemats.

The 1985 Croft:

3:15pm, removed capsule to find crusty/moldy growth. extracted mushy cork in two whole parts. poured thru unbleached paper coffee filter into a riedel funnel into a reidel decanter. noticed a slight brown coloring but still retaining a firm brick red at it's core. immediately poured about 1 ounce in glass to test. decanting took 15 minutes, didn't expect it to take so long, eventually gave up on the coffee filter drip and went with a mesh thingy you stick directly into the neck of the bottle. turns out it was just as slow.
nose of stewed fruit but nothing stewed about it's first sip. raspberry kirschy with no detectable heat, this taste quite yummy. bright acid, well balanced, fruit driven. better than i anticipated. will check back in an hour.

Alex,

I had the same impression of this, tasted some years ago. Found it to be much more matured than most of the other 85s I have tasted so far.

Axel

1 hour later shows a nice mellowing and melding of fruit into a smokey tea profile. i should have had more when first opened, as i am really into fruit driven wines, but the hour change shows it still has that raspberry plus the smokiness. at this point, i think i like it better than you did, but maybe only by a point. which still doesn't make it a great buy for me. $60 and 88 points?

but, this is my first solo venture with vp (offlines, everyone else dotted the i's and crossed the t's, all i had to do was drink....) and i can tell you i certainly have the fever!

Don't get me wrong - I like this port and would happily drink it again. At $60, I think that's a fair price to pay for a mature 1985 vintage. It's a great way to get yourself hooked on vintage port!

Congratulations