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A Ragbag of Good Port, Monday 19 September 2011, at the Steak Exchange. Links:

• Review of the evening as a whole;
• 1970 Martinez;
• 1970 Offley Boa Vista;
• 1970 Croft;
• 1996 Vesuvio;
• 1977 Niepoort;
• 1977 Warre;
• 1991 Croft;
• 1991 Morgan;
• Planning and arrangements;
• Placemats.

Decanted at 17:30. Tasted at D+30 minutes.

Mid red colour, clear bricking on the rim. Losing opacity - perhaps 50% opaque. A little empty on the nose, vigorous swirling coaxes out some bisto and redcurrant. Sweet entry, medium bodied and then firey acidity dominates the palate. This eventually subsides to give way to a spicy cherry and raisin. Huge finish, full of bitter cherries. Lovely port in a good plae and one that should improve in the glass. 89/100.

Light-medium in colour (lighter than the usual W77); Good nose and flavour - full, spicy and well rounded though without quite as much wood as typical. Very good / Excellent.

Woody/dusty nose. Very smooth and elegant on the palate with delicious cherry sweetness.

My first time with this port.

Pleasant, though i just felt wanting for a bit of oomph. Nice gentle spiciness. Cherries is right, first sweeter, then sour. Quite acidic for my palate. ***, but consensus that this was not firing on all cylinders.

(copied-ish from recent email exchange with AHB, due to relevance here)

For a recent celebration, I opened another bottle of W77 this weekend just passed; interestingly it was about the same colour as the one from the informal (slightly lighter than my expectation for ‘usual’) but tasted lovely. A little acid to begin with, but at 24hr was lovely, and went oh.. SO well with some chocolate! Even better at 48hr when I finished the bottle.

It did make me wonder whether at the informals the results might sometimes suffer from ‘pepsi-challenge’ syndrome (the [apocryphal?] theory that pepsi always beat coca-cola in head-to-head tasting due to it being slightly sweeter, whereas when tested individually more people placed a higher ‘like’ on the coke). I wonder if comparisons such as (in particular) the recent W77 vs N77 may be biased by this effect at tastings compared with preference when drunk solo!