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• Review of the evening as a whole;
• Placemats;
• 1960 Cockburn;
• 1960 Sandeman;
• 1960 Ferreira;
• 1960 Delaforce;
• 1960 Croft;
• 1960 Fonseca;
• 1960 Taylor;
• 1960 Quinta do Noval;
• 1960 Quinta do Noval Nacional;
• 1960 Quinta do Rei;
• 1960 Dow;
• 1960 Graham;
• 1960 Warre;
• 1960 Martinez;
• Planning and arrangements.

First -- Happy birthday Tom! It was a pleasure to help you celebrate such a momentous occasion.

As always, great to see familiar faces, as well as to meet new port enthusiasts

I thought the Bowler did a very respectable job, and would imagine it would be even better for 6-8 person events. The asparagus/cheese tart in particular was quite good indeed.

Turning to the wines themselves -- and let me say what a privilege it is to be able to taste such a wide array of wines from a 50 year-old vintage -- 1960 appears to be, for my palate, a middling vintage.

I suspect that I would have enjoyed these bottles more about 5 years ago, as while they are generally nicely structured, at this point there isn't nearly enough fruit left to balance out the alcohol and remaining tannin.

Drinking today, while wines are not nearly as thin, disjointed, bitter, or alcoholic as we've seen on the '75s or the '78s, they do as a class seem to want for fruit, depth, complexity, and deliciousness.

Were I to sum up my thoughts on the 1960s in a word, it would be 'meh.' Not bad, per se, but nothing at all to seek out -- especially not at the prices they command in the market. I know that many of you think once 2010 (50th anniversary year) passes, the market will slack considerably, but in the States, these wines NEVER go for <$150.

I don't mean for this to seem overly harsh, and I know there were quite a few wines that showed reasonably well (specifically Dow, Noval, Warre, Croft, Delaforce, Nacional, Sandeman). But even if you take 1960 Dow, the group's WOTN, the cheapest bottle appears to be 120per (Ancient and Modern), compared to 32per (Underwood) for the 1983 Dow (which to my palate was a more tasty, albeit less complex effort based on my tasting a month ago).

The experience actually left me leaving the Bowler with two rather curious reflections:

1.) 1970 is a truly special vintage. Every 70 I've had so far (about 7) has been complete, balanced, and deeply enjoyable. Given how hard that quality has proven to find in other mature vintages of Port, I should seek out some additional bottles.
2.) The general quality of Port seems to have taken a massive step forward in the last decade. I am quite sure that in ~50 years, tastings of 2000 and 2003 Port will show much better than the 1960s did this evening.

Again, a fun and educational night. Many thanks to all for organizing, and thanks to Tom for being born in 1960!

I'm very interested to hear a report on the Ferreira and Taylor. Those, plus the Niepoort, are the only 1960 VPs that I can recall tasting and I was either very lucky or all three should be outstanding.

Happy birthday, Tom; what an excellent way to celebrate!

First things first - Happy Birthday Tom, again.
Second things second - thank Al B for organising the event. Great (even though obvious) theme; liked the venue and talking to the Aussie guy at the end, looks like we could improve by telling him to get aged steaks in, in advance.

Most impressive thing about the Ports was that they were all a good colour, none had descended into pallid, flaccid syrups. A couple were flawed and a couple past their best but still drinkable. Not the best vintage but some pretty good Ports in there - Warre, Noval and Dow coming up the best value and opinions, with NN showing but not the star. I also though that the Fonseca came about after a while in the glass.

Most impressive thing about the night was the company with the Portuguese contingent coming on strong against the American corner, with me sandwiched in between. Great to meet all of you.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, very much for the company rather than the wines which I think Chris described very accurately as "meh". Drinkable and acceptable but certainly not ones to add to the cellar at £120+ per bottle.

However, it was great to see Gustavo and Oscar again and a realy pleasure to meet David and Raul for the first time.

Thanks all for coming and taking the opportunity to share these 50 year old wines. Next 50th anniversary will be KillerB and mine in October 2013 - make a note of the date in your diaries!

Many thanks to AHB for his organising and to Julian for another faultless set of placemats (apart from the water boxes that is)

The venue was 'different'..and the food quality not great ..with room for improvement as the Aussie guy was appreciative of feedback...but clearly not enough space for that many people...I had lots of room but the subject of the evening (uncle Tom) was crammed into a very small space...lets see if that happens again in 2013!!

WOTN for me was the Dow...not a million miles away was the Noval...note to self...find some of this.

Overall a great evening with good company and it was good to meet Oscar and Gustavo for the first time.

Looking forward to our next gathering.

Cookie wrote:(apart from the water boxes that is)

Please elaborate.

jdaw1 wrote:

Cookie wrote:(apart from the water boxes that is)

Please elaborate.

I suspect it is because we changed the plan when we realised the table wasn't large enough to lay out all three A4 placemats at the same time. This resulted in Righties not having watermarks for flight 1 and Lefties not having them for flight 2+3.

AHB wrote:Thanks all for coming and taking the opportunity to share these 50 year old wines. Next 50th anniversary will be KillerB and mine in October 2013 - make a note of the date in your diaries!

A '63 horizontal? Now that's something worth looking forward to!

Entering my TNs (please be encouraged to do likewise), I found a written quotation of CSD: ‟1960 as a whole: fruit fading; heat remaining”. Good summary.

WOTN: Dow, then Noval, then Sandeman. Gustavo had exactly the same preference order. Croft would have been 4th, had the voting rules allowed a 4th place.

jdaw1 wrote:Entering my TNs (please be encouraged to do likewise)

Better late than never, I have now complied with that request.

jdaw1 wrote:WOTN: Dow, then Noval, then Sandeman. Gustavo had exactly the same preference order. Croft would have been 4th, had the voting rules allowed a 4th place.

In reviewing my notes I found a comment on the page used for collecting WOTN votes which states: "Girl in the grey dress - Nicos 1, 2 & 3".