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Consumed on 20 May 2009 at The Crusted Pipe in a "bring a bottle to share" and 2007 Horizontal offline.

An odd bottle I'd picked up some time ago. According to a sticker, it passed through Berry Bros & Rudd at some stage in its life. Decanted at about 0015 the night before the tasting. The cork came out cleanly and there wasn't a great deal of sedement.

There was still a little darkness to the colour. The nose was slightly off. In the mouth it was quite soft but with a little too much fire. Perfectly drinkable but obviously a poor bottle of what I think is usually a great Port.

Pale red in colour and with a deep brown centre. A lively and spicy nose with some of the alcohol showing through. Very hollow initially in the mouth but develops some good flavours eventually. The spirit is not wholly integrated and the tannins have more or less gone. The aftertaste is softly fruity, very sweet and quite long but does have some harsh notes in it. This was served blind and I guessed it to be the Graham 1975. 86/100.

I noted this to be a red-brown colour - similar to a young tawny perhaps? Quite spirity on the nose, lots of tannins but quite enjoyable. I guessed at a Taylors 1985!

In an attempt to clear my Port backlog, I drank the rest of this (a couple of glasses) last night.

168+ hours’ decanting is, perhaps, a little on the long side, at this stage it had become very smooth and sweet. The harshness had disappeared. It was quite attractive and very drinkable despite being open for a week.

I have previously clocked that '77's can sometimes come round long after they were decanted (most notably with the Graham), but I also had a Warre recently that died on me in short order, even though a previous W77 had bloomed late; so I'm unclear on this score..

Tom

i found that 5 hours is the sweet spot for decant with this wine.

I've had it 3 times now and each time it was fantastic.