ThePortForum.com

Decanted 12/3/09 to celebrate young Max's 4th day.

Despite having been stood up for a couple of months, it was not a very clean decant, forcing me to divert to the dregs glass with a good glassful left in the bottle. Average amount of sludgy sediment.

Unlike the last bottle I opened 18 months ago, this bottle had no bottle stink, and the wine was immediately approachable.

Now 24hrs on, there has been virtually no evolution.

This is a good wine, with Taylor's trademark bite and sober nose; but the meniscus is overly clear for a wine of this age, while the tannins remain very persistant, furring my teeth most noticeably. The fruit seems a little tired.

To score;

For immediate gratification, this is a top quartile wine, but not by a mile, so an 8

Where's it going? Quite a hard call, but I think it has seen it's best days now,

- so score 8-7

Tom

Very good. And the little fellow is also drinking well, though, at least not yet, T77.

Link to review of other such toastings.

Interesting. I think that most of mine are showingjust a bit younger...showing best the next day. But there is considerable bottle variation... and the leakers don't help. The last one I opened was by far the youngest I have tasted. I selected it out because it had a low fill. I open it - only to realize that he cork is pristine. The low fill was just what it had started with, it wasn't leaking at all. Oh well. At least it was superb!

As a post-script, the wine showed a noticeable improvement, with better integration, on the third day.

Tom