LBV Old and New - part 1

[Alex Bridgeman]

A very interesting tasting, the headline of which is that all three Warre LBVs were better than a control sample of Taylor 1955 that we had, courtesy of RLC. More later.

[jdaw1]

a control sample of Taylor 1955

In most experimental contexts the ‘control sample’ reflects the default state. In medical trials it might be no treatment, usually in the form of a placebo, or the most widely-used of the current treatments.

What joy it is that your default state is Taylor 1955.

[benread]

The most interesting aspect of last night was tasting the Warre LBV's in a mini-vertical and getting some sense of how the recent releases may evolve over 30+ years. The 1974 was an amazingly perfect (to my eyes) red colour - just how port should be. The 1995 and 2000 were much darker. All three shared a gentle pepper-like heat which complimented the fruitiness well.

The consensus was that Warre LBV should be sought out for acquisition, offering great QPR potential!

[Deleted_User_1]

What a splendid evening and thanks to Alex, Ben and Rob for making it so.

I have to admit I was a little sceptical at the concept of drinking LBV wine but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and consistency. All of the wines had the quality of a VP (except the T'55 VP) as well as the ageing charachteristics...the question now is...are we wasting our money?

The WOTN was clearly the Warres 1995 followed very closely by the 2000. At around £20 a bottle these are seriously good value and given the 1974 (close 3rd) had a fantastic colour, possibly enhanced by the big jug it was served from, I now think I should make space for some.

Overall it was also funny to see that all of the LBV wines were clear winners over a Taylors 1955...I bet that hasn't happened before!!

Anyone dare to bring a VP 'control sample' for part 2 of this theme?

[DRT]

The WOTN was clearly the Warres 1995

This makes me very happy. I have 18 bottles that were purchsed from asda for £5 each about three years ago and removed 6 of them from storage last month

[RAYC]

With the Tesco 25% reduction offers and half price introductory prices there have been a few crazy deals over the last 18 months, but if you bought these for £5 over the last few years I would say that just about tops them all!

I thought the '00 and '95 were very good ports in their own right and showed favourably against the Churchill '91vp ordered as a pre-tasting warm-up (side note: this appears to have replaced the S'82 as the Crusted Pipe's new house port) - albeit the Ch '91 had been open for a few days so perhaps not a fair comparison. But these are bottles that would give a number of VPs cause to blush.

My impression of the '74 is that it is perhaps on a gentle downward curve and might have been at its peak 10 years ago, but as Cookie remarked the colour was fantastic and it made for a very pleasant drop that is in no danger of falling off a cliff any time soon. Again, I have had numerous bottles of VP over the last year that were neither "off" nor corked but did not show as well as this, and I suspect it would be tough to spot in a blind tasting. And (although I appreciate this does not matter a jot to some), it was bottled beautifully.

Are we wasting our money? If i was looking for a port to drink and Waitrose/Oddbins had these at £20, i would certainly buy a bottle, but at that price i'm not sure I'd be buying half/full cases when, for instance, £25 can get you a SW '97 (still a QPR favourite of mine) or a number of other lesser/younger VPs that hopefully would live up to their more illustrious billing. But they are certainly ones to look out for when the supermarkets do their offers - Waitrose had the 2000 at £12-13 over Christmas and I should have tucked a few away.

[DRT]

There were others here who benefited from the same crazy offer. For whatever reason, Asda decided to de-stock the Warre LBV a few years ago and discounted the entire stock from about £16 to £5. There were 92, 94 and 95s on the shelves at the time and all were discounted to the same price. I and others here spent a few days travelling around the country sweeping the shelves of all we could find and sharing it amongst us. It was worth the effort. I drank about three cases of mixed vintages of this that year and stashed some of the 95 away. I opened a bottle about 10 minutes ago and it appears that it was worth the wait

[DRT]

Here is a link to a TN of the WLBV95 from the time of the offer mentioned above.

[Alex Bridgeman]

It was a very relaxed evening and was quite nice with only four of us in a room that can fit six. Plus, we didn't run out of port and that's always good. The only downside was that it was so quiet that TCP closed at 10pm and were actively encouraging us to leave before 10:30pm. Hopefully it will be a bit busier on the 26th.

The Warre LBVs were tremendous. They clearly have the stuffing to mature for 1-2 decades and it is a shame that we didn't have an example from the 1980s. Our best guess was that the 1974 was slightly past its peak but the 1995 was still some time away. My New Year's resolution is to find some 1980s Warre Traditional LBV to taste and see if we were right.

The Warres were head and shoulders above the other wines. To be fair, the Taylor 1955 and Taylor 1967 LBV were both weak wines. T55 does deliver much more when the bottle is on form, but didn't this evening. For the LBV offline - Part 2 we have another bottle of Taylor 1967 LBV from a different source and can see whether the wine is old and tired because of its age or whether it could have been a damaged bottle.

I'm sad to see the Sandeman 1982 disappear from the TCP list. I thoroughly enjoyed that wine and the Churchill 1991 is a step down in quality. I've had the Churchill on a handful of occasions in the last few months and have consistently rated it in the mid- low-eighties. Perhaps it is going through a closed phase, and will improve in future years, but it's not a wine that I am actively looking to drink.

I'll post my tasting notes shortly.