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A bottle given to me by my son for Fathers Day

1994 tesco's Vintage Port - produced by the Symington Family
Pop and pour without decanting on the insistence of Conky. Nice fruity smell. Quite thick but then develops quite a harsh edge. Dominant taste is raspberry. Very dry in the finish. Second taste is better - I might have been suffering from the clash of the lager I just finished against the sweetness of the port.

I don't recognise this style as one of the Symington brands. It would be interesting to know if it is a special bottling of one brand or a blend of all the remnants that were left in cask at the end of the blending and bottling runs of their real 94's.

More in a couple of days - this will go into the fridge now and be decanted on Friday or Saturday night.

OK - I admit it, I poured a rather large glass and left no room in it to allow me to get a good whiff.

Now down to a small glassful and with a few vigorous swirls the distinctive smell of immature port emerges. I can also now see very thick tears on the side of the glass. The harshness is gone so I blame the lager and Alan in equal measure for that earlier comment.

More later

It's interesting what an hour can do to a VP. This is now very nice, although still too young for my taste. I'm looking forward to giving this some air in a couple of days and seeing what it's made of.

+72 Hours
Has spent most of the past 48 hours in the fridge.

Still thick and now very fruity. No heat and a good measure of tannic dryness. This is actually quite an impressive BOB.

Well done Ross

Derek

Derek,

I've tasted the Tesco BOB 1994 Vintage Port but it must have been an earlier bottling. I will look back at my notes when I get the chance but I swear that mine was bottled under the Quarles Harris brand. The next batch of tesco own brand Vintage Port that came in was from 1995 and this was bottled under the Symington Family brand. Perhaps this new company is a relatively recent creation that has now taken over the BOB business for the Group.

I'll dig out my tasting notes eventually, probably when I have caught up with all the other threads that have been posted here.

Alex

I wonder if this is where all the Berry Brothers 94 Own Label vintage port has gone. I liked it a lot the one time I tried it, but it's been gone for a while.

I got a bottle of this last night. I saw it at £16 and thought that it must be worth it, looks likely from Derek's notes. It's from Symington's and is 1994 so I guessed that a punt at that price was worthwhile.

bman wrote:I wonder if this is where all the Berry Brothers 94 Own Label vintage port has gone. I liked it a lot the one time I tried it, but it's been gone for a while.

I believe that all of the BBR 94 was the Smith Woodhouse. I remember buying a bottle from their now gone shop at T1 Heathrow and was told then that it was the last bottle in any of their shops