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NV Taylor Ruby (Select Reserve)

Posted: 00:50 Thu 13 Jan 2011
by KillerB
Rank

I bought this from Morrison's today in the vain hope that at £6.49 I may have sought out a bargain. Matched up against a similarly priced Cockburn's, with an equally terrible name and the Dow junk Ruby, I assumed it must be the best of a bad bunch of nasty rubies. Having had 'Renown' before, I knew what I was up against and a Cockburn's that is lower than Special Reserve did not appeal.

However, this ranks well below either of those non-entity Ports, into the realms of really dreadful. I can only hope that I had a bad bottle - it had no noticeable fruit, a terrible mouthfeel and an aftertaste that made a previous 'wasabi' jibe seem unfit. I could detect no genuine fault (I maybe wrong), just a rotten bottle of ruby, possibly the worst. Not sure it's good enough for cooking - I buy pretty good mince, you know.

Re: NV Taylor Select Reserve

Posted: 19:06 Fri 14 Jan 2011
by RonnieRoots
I also made this mistake once. Only once...

BTW, I have a bottle of Cockburn Ruby here that I use for cooking. When I threw some in a hot pan yesterday to make a sauce, the smell specificly reminded me of denatured alcohol. Not very nice.

Re: NV Taylor Select Reserve

Posted: 00:24 Sun 16 Jan 2011
by Alex Bridgeman
I opened a bottle of Cockburn Special Reserve a few days ago. It had been in the bottle for about 30 years. It was quite enjoyable and if I had the chance to drink another bottle, I would!

Re: NV Taylor Select Reserve

Posted: 11:21 Sun 16 Jan 2011
by RonnieRoots
Wasn't that from the time when Cockburn decided not to declare vintage port because they wanted to save their quality grapes for the Special Reserve? It woudn't surprise me if the blend nowadays is slightly different... :wink:

Re: NV Taylor Select Reserve

Posted: 00:21 Mon 17 Jan 2011
by JacobH
I don’t understand why the Port producers make such a complex tangle of brands of Ruby Ports. I recently tried Taylor’s First Estate Ruby Reserve which I thought was quite solid with loads of fruit. It was perhaps even better than their LBV. But how is the customer supposed to know that it is a different product from this one? Especially as I imagine both are bottled in the black bottle / black label combo that Taylor’s goes in for for their cheaper products.