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Tasted at a vertical of drinkable Graham's Vintage Ports from the past 50 years, held on the ever auspicious Friday the Thirteenth (February 2009) and hosted graciously by jfacciol.
Links: Review; 1960; 1963; 1966; 1970; 1977; 1980; 1983; 1985; 1991; 1994; Planning

Graham’s 1985: decanted 14:40. Dark red, no brown, no blue, 50% translucency. At D+0 some astringency in the nose, but also sweet cranberry. To taste likewise, with mouthfilling sweetness and nice length. Tannins too strong: will be fixed by the passage of time. Bodes well.

Graham’s 1985: I might have thought it boded well, but this bright-red port had a foul and ’orrible bottle stink. Attempting to ignore the stink I found a taste that I could only describe as ‟heat; nice weight”. The stink diminished with time, but not enough.

Bizarrely, Anthony liked this.

What kind of stink was it? I've never tasted this port, but LadyR has, and found hints of VA.

Heavy stink of evaporated milk that turns a little nail polishy. (I definitely smell the VA here)

The taste of VA is overwhelming, noticeable tannins and a celery bitterish finish.

Later on in the night, this started picking up body and flavor. Still stunk, but some stewed plums backed with a full bodied spirit started appearing.

Withheld rating.

+5 Dark semi-clear ruby. My first whiff of this was a big screaming Garbage Bin, with some raisins at the bottom. Sure enough, in the mouth there's a baked, stewed raisins flavor. It's hot at the start, but lightens up rapidly. The tail is light in flavor but very very hot.

It improved a bit over the course of the night, the garbage bin faded and the raisins mellowed out, but I'm only giving this an 87. Maybe a different bottle would have been better.