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1985 Warre
Posted: 07:18 Mon 30 Sep 2013
by TLW
At a country house hotel outside Winchester, apparently decanted the day before.
Still about 80% opaque. Very spirity on the nose, stewed prunes, hint of orange, soft, young, not complex, drinkable enough, but ever so slightly disappointing. Whilst there will be no difficulty in drinking the few of them that I have, I will not be in a rush to fill my cellar with more.
The pity is that they had 1966 Taylor by the glass, but it seems that it had been decanted some long time before, so gave this a miss.
Re: 1985 Warre
Posted: 10:43 Mon 30 Sep 2013
by griff
TLW wrote:At a country house hotel outside Winchester, apparently decanted the day before.
Still about 80% opaque. Very spirity on the nose, stewed prunes, hint of orange, soft, young, not complex, drinkable enough, but ever so slightly disappointing. Whilst there will be no difficulty in drinking the few of them that I have, I will not be in a rush to fill my cellar with more.
The pity is that they had 1966 Taylor by the glass, but it seems that it had been decanted some long time before, so gave this a miss.
What a waste of a 66! Surely they could have given it away or imbibed before such a demise
Re: 1985 Warre
Posted: 15:57 Mon 30 Sep 2013
by Alex Bridgeman
TLW wrote:At a country house hotel outside Winchester, apparently decanted the day before.
Please do say where. I am interested in visiting a hotel which has Taylor 1966 on offer by the glass - but I will phone ask them to decant a fresh bottle for my visit!
Re: 1985 Warre
Posted: 10:13 Tue 01 Oct 2013
by TLW
AHB wrote:TLW wrote:At a country house hotel outside Winchester, apparently decanted the day before.
Please do say where. I am interested in visiting a hotel which has Taylor 1966 on offer by the glass - but I will phone ask them to decant a fresh bottle for my visit!
The Lainston House Hotel outside Winchester - very civilised place. They had the following ports by the glass:
1966 Taylor
1977 Taylor
1977 Warre (although did not see this one with the others)
1985 Warre
They also had 1945 Dow by the bottle.
The prices were really rather reasonable in the context of the typical markup for a good hotel restaurant - about twice and a bit. The issue is that the decanting appears to be patchy , and it appears that some of it is decanted once, and then back into the bottle, and filtered again before going into the glass, although the 85 Warre appears to have been properly done, so I chose this one the first night.
There appears to be a particular barman/sommelier that does the decanting, although I never ascertained who that might be. The rest of the staff had no idea when most of the port had been decanted. Thus, I took a plunge and tried the 1977 Taylor (long ago having given away the only case I had of it as a wedding present - and was never invited to share - what can I say, he was from Southhampton). It was disappointing - and thus no note - seeming to be past the best drink by date, but I drank it anyway; it had gone a bit flat, but was not yet unpleasant.