2015 Graham LBV

[Alex Bridgeman]

Graham 2015 LBV bottled 2020: a commemorative bottling for the 200th anniversary of Graham’s. Deep purple red colour, opaque centre. Wonderful sweet bramble nose with a delicious sage twist. Incredible fragrance in the fruit on the palate, surprisingly tannic but very well balanced despite the powerful, fine-grained tannins. Lovely sweet bramble with just a slight blackcurrant bitterness. Immense blackcurrant on the aftertaste and a fruit driven, tannic finish of tremendous duration. This is a most excellent LBV Port and a steal at £8.99. 91/100. Pop ‘n’ pour on 27-Dec-2020.

Oh my goodness! This is an excellent LBV and an absolute top tip at the current Waitrose price if anyone is looking for a Ruby Port as a house Port.

[rich_n]

Graham 2015 LBV bottled 2020: a commemorative bottling for the 200th anniversary of Graham’s. Deep purple red colour, opaque centre. Wonderful sweet bramble nose with a delicious sage twist. Incredible fragrance in the fruit on the palate, surprisingly tannic but very well balanced despite the powerful, fine-grained tannins. Lovely sweet bramble with just a slight blackcurrant bitterness. Immense blackcurrant on the aftertaste and a fruit driven, tannic finish of tremendous duration. This is a most excellent LBV Port and a steal at £8.99. 91/100. Pop ‘n’ pour on 27-Dec-2020.

Oh my goodness! This is an excellent LBV and an absolute top tip at the current Waitrose price if anyone is looking for a Ruby Port as a house Port.

Is it filtered, Alex? I'm tempted to stock up heavily if it isn't.

[Glenn E.]

It doesn't say (at least on US bottles), which implies that it is filtered.

It's fantastic. I tasted it blind, thought it was a VP, and gave it 95 points. That's not unusual - my ratings typically move parallel to Alex's but I'm usually ~3 points higher. Also I'm clearly very fond of Graham's flavor profile as I routinely rate it highly when tasting blind.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Graham 2015 LBV bottled 2020: a commemorative bottling for the 200th anniversary of Graham’s. Deep purple red colour, opaque centre. Wonderful sweet bramble nose with a delicious sage twist. Incredible fragrance in the fruit on the palate, surprisingly tannic but very well balanced despite the powerful, fine-grained tannins. Lovely sweet bramble with just a slight blackcurrant bitterness. Immense blackcurrant on the aftertaste and a fruit driven, tannic finish of tremendous duration. This is a most excellent LBV Port and a steal at £8.99. 91/100. Pop ‘n’ pour on 27-Dec-2020.

Oh my goodness! This is an excellent LBV and an absolute top tip at the current Waitrose price if anyone is looking for a Ruby Port as a house Port.

Is it filtered, Alex? I'm tempted to stock up heavily if it isn't.

My conclusion is the same as Glenn's - I think this is probably filtered, but I also think it will happily cellar for 5-10 years.

[rich_n]

Thanks gents, I had thought it would be but it sounds like a delicious wine so I'll definitely get a few bottles of it. Cheers!

[Alex Bridgeman]

I can also share that this Port is a most excellent partner for Long Clawson Stilton.

[JacobH]

Notes: A 200th Anniversary bottling. Filtered. Deep purple, fading a little bit to the edge. The nose is concentrated with different dark fruits, although ever so slightly spirity. In the mouth, there is an immediate hit of grapes, blackcurrants and little cherry. The tannins are remarkably strong for a filtered LBV but not unpleasant: rounded. The acidity is moderate and the aftertaste (which is moderately long) is dominated by cherries. Not obviously sweet. I might mistake it for a drier shipper. The quality, though, is excellent and much better than anything that has been released for £8.99 for some time.

Date: 5th January 2021

Rated*: C

http://www.jacob-head.com/port/records/ ... m_2015_LBV

* A Note on Ratings

My rating system attempts to answer the question “is this a good Port?” one of three ways: N—No; P—Possibly; or C—Certainly. Ports generally are weighted slightly by their category. Therefore, a Ruby Port might receive a C rating for Certainly good which it might not were it to be a Vintage Port. I sometimes modify my rating with a plus or minus indicating that the Port is better or worse than might be expected for this category.