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Another great evening at TCP and many thanks to Chris Doty for organising this...Great Food...Great Company...Great Wine...well mostly

Sorry that Ben and Mark couldn't make it...maybe next time guys.

All wines were neatly covered in tin foil...oh no I forgot...our overseas friend seems to believe an entirely inapproprite plastic carrier bag does the job...how they ever became a 'super power' is beyond me ...anyway.

The line up for this blind tasting was:

Ferrira 1960 - AHB
Gould Campbell - 1970 - CD
Martinez 1967 - DRT
Dows 1977 - Jacob
Grahams 1977 - JDAW
Grahams Malvedos - 1976
Croft 1970 - Tom

The WOTN for me was the the Croft '70. Lots of cherries on entry with good heat mid palate finishing on oranges...lovely. This was followed closely by Alex's Ferreira '60 once you got past the bottle stink this was also very good. No 'duds' really apart from my contribution which sadly showed exactly the same as the one in the big Malvedos tasting earlier.

Great evening...same again soon I hope.

Sorry couldn't make it - liver might not have lasted, and would've been in the doghouse anyway! Looked a great line up.

Well, while I agree with Cookie that it was a great evening, and that the 70 Croft was the best of the night (92pts), I'm afraid I must say I disagree that there were no 'duds.'

I think that the 76 Malvedos, the 77 Dow and the 60 Ferreira all had rather meaningful faults. Not that they were not giving any pleasure, per se, but that they seemed to punch meaningfully below their potential.

I had the 70 Croft at the top of the heap (92pts), followed by the 70 Gould (90pts), then a bit of a gap until the 77 Graham (87pts) and the 67 Martinez (85pts).

The other three wines just didn't really do a lot for me (though it was a treat to be transported to the ice rink at Central Park for even a short while). I am now 0/3 on Dow's 1977

Still, a lovely time all the same. Looking forward to the next one.

Chris,
Was the Dow's corked? I ask as it has a rather high TCA taint issue.

Sadly, yes. When first poured, the redeeming features of the wine (despite the TCA) put up a decent fight (I believe it was even Tom's WOTN), but in time the TCA became increasingly noticeable. A pity, as I am yet to have a good bottle of 77 Dow in three attempts. One day....one day....

The good news is that the 1970 vintage seems to be a total monster. Both wines still had primary aspects, and were drinking very, very well.

A very good night indeed, despite some of the wines not doing so well. I have to say we seem to have been extremely unlucky recently with bad bottles. I don't remember having such a bad run of luck as we have done in the last three months.

My WOTN was the GC70 - a fabulous bottle. The Croft from the same vintage was also fantastic and I didn't think there was such a big gap between those two and the Mz67 and G77 than Chris did.

What's next?

I enjoyed the evening, too, though the flawed-bottle problem was a bit of a pain. I thought the Croft 1970 was the best wine of the night, followed very closely by the Gould Campbell. The Martinez 1967 was only a touch behind. All three are probably worth buying when the opportunity arises...

Although I am less bothered about Port being slightly corked than others, it's a shame to have yet another corked Dow 1977 (the third spoiled one I've had in a row); it should otherwise be an excellent wine, which I just about preferred to the Graham.

It was good fun on Monday night, and we had a bonus bottle of some Pisca 2007 that Cookie forgot to mention.

The steaks were delicious, despite no longer having the rib-eye on the bone available. The ports were good although the cork monster is getting to be a bit frustrating with the D77 - perhaps we need to hold a D77 tasting with many different bottles all opened at the same time. The risk of consistent TCA taint is perhaps the unfortunate side effect of carrying out all bottling in Portugal since it means all corks are treated in the same way.

My wine of the night was the Graham '77 (93 pts), which I loved and which I thought opened in the glass so beautifully during the night. It was a close run thing between this and the Croft '70 (92 pts). The Ferreira 1960 was a bit too smelly on the night, but 24 hours later was much improved and was very enjoyable - but not up to the same standard as the Graham.

Considering the number of these blind tastings we do, I am always amazed at how rarely we end up with duplicate bottles and what a great range of bottles to have tried.

DRT wrote:What's next?

I can't think. The only question is whether I should finish off my sample bottles from the last few days before opening anything else...

TN threads have been created. Please do post your notes.

• 1960 Ferreira;
• 1970 Gould Campbell;
• 1967 Martinez;
• 1977 Dow;
• 1977 Graham;
• 1976 Graham Malvedos;
• 1970 Croft.