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I had a tumbler of this at Gordon’s Wine Bar last week. It was after a somewhat substantial dinner (and a horrific amount of Ruby Port) so I wasn’t in entirely the best state to make a proper TN . However, based on previous comments, this was probably a good thing for the purposes of enjoying it. The 85 is incredibly pale for its age; I think I would have guessed it as being a 70 by sight. The taste was, by that stage in the evening, inoffensive: an unexciting, over-mature VP. Not a Port I think is worth bothering with again.

Then your experience was better than my experience of Naughty Boy 1985.

We had a bottle of this recently and it was quite sweet tasting and had more age to it than one would assume. We ended up enjoying the bottle more than we thought we would. Had a unique taste going on. There should be our TN's somewhere?

jdaw1 wrote:Then your experience was better than my experience of Naughty Boy 1985.

I do completely agree with your sentiments expressed in that thread; I hadn’t quite managed a gallon of Landlord (and I don’t think my composition is quite up to it!), but was on my way to a similar state with wine which seemed to be a good position to be in to drink it!

I've wandered past (and indeed into) Gordon's on a few occasions to look to see if it is a potential venue for our tastings. Next time I will stop off and try the Messias for myself. Did they have anything else there by the glass?

AHB wrote:I've wandered past (and indeed into) Gordon's on a few occasions to look to see if it is a potential venue for our tastings. Next time I will stop off and try the Messias for myself. Did they have anything else there by the glass?

An offline at Gordon's would be a fun idea, though I wonder if they will be willing (they seem to have quite a strict "no-booking" policy)...

I think they regularly have a few rubies, tawnies and whites on offer by the glass and then a couple of better Ports from the bottle on a changing basis (e.g. an LBV and VP). The Messias was one of those, though as it seems to be their house shipper, I imagine they will still be serving it. Amusingly, the larger glass is tumbler rather than anything conventional...I'm not sure if the IVDP would approve!

I'm in London tomorrow afternoon and have a gap in my schedule - I may well see what they have open at that time.

I must have had a bad bottle because it was terrible wildly unknit I just can't put it into words.

Ben and I had an after-work drink in Gordon's last night. I decided to concentrate on the Messias 10-year-old Tawny, but had a sip of this. Even from a standing-start, this is exactly as I remember it: extremely pale and unbelievably sweet. Actually, it was almost identical to the 10-year-old Tawny in colour, sweetness and flavour, but without the woody, caramel after-taste of a Tawny.

My experience of this was that it was pretty good. Certainly it had more to it than the Warre Otima that we had after.

Maybe this explains things: it's a Colheita, aged for 23 years in cask - I have the bottle in front of me (they let me keep the empty!)

Silkscreen stencil on the front:
PORTO
1985
MESSIAS
ENVELHECIDO EM CASCO

Label on the back:
PORTO MESSIAS
COLHEITA 1985
Engarrafado em 2008