13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Axel P
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by Axel P »

Thanks, Rob. This was a fantastic event. Great Ports with great people. Every mile airtravel worthy going to London and see you all.

best

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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An excellent evening, with good company and some lovely ports. Alas the Bung Hole was slightly off form, in that they were a hundred glasses light, confounding our planning. But we coped, and very well.

I will post pictures when I find the camera wire.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Observe that the 1979 magnum had a new cork.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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13 Movember 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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Axel P
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by Axel P »

Thanks for the pics, Jdaw
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

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I failed to photograph the oldest bottles. If somebody else did, please post.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by griff »

I just would like to say that this was a fantastic event. By and large the older ports showed very well indeed, to the point of making me wonder if the younger vintages will ever scale those heights. A big thank you to Rob for organising such a definitive tasting and thanks to everyone else for the bonhomie. I feel that I have a grasp now of the Graham house style but no doubt I would be completely clueless once again should I come across one blind.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by RAYC »

Thanks to everyone who came and contributed both to the ports and atmosphere, and in particular to THRA for opening up a magnificent 1942, to Axel for flying over for the event, and to AHB and DRT for taking charge of the set-up and glasses fiasco!

Thankfully the older ports (in my opinion) all showed well, some spectacularly, and outside the run-away WOTN (1942), there were 5 or 6 wines that did well in the voting (though a surprising lack of consistency across the table). Will post voting sheet over the next couple of days.

A few takeaways for me:

- it was obvious from the voting breakdown that we all like old ports. But i find it is then quite hard to fully appreciate good 80s ports, which can seem quite backward/inelegant by comparison....

- ...particularly when trying to get through 22 ports in 4 hours!

- it was a nice surprise to see G77 drinking so well. G91 was the other surprise of the night for me - drinking very nicely now (though probably indicating that this is not a blockbuster).

- GM87 is a very good port, and - alongside the 80, 83 and 85 - surely makes Graham the stand-out performer of the 80s. It will be interesting to test this in 15-20 years

- 66 is just a great vintage! Pity there's so little around

- G94 is one to leave alone for the moment. But at £350ib, a smart buy for the future.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by PhilW »

Thank you Rob and all for organising an excellent evening. I agree with most of Rob's points above, finding the (expected) consistency across the range of the Grahams VP vintages; that might also explain the spread of votes, given the consistency.

I found the 42 superb (thank you to those who supplied it), while the 55 was 'only' equally as good as the 63/66/70/77 for me (interesting comparison to WvF where 55s ruled over the 60s and 70s, though only because the 55 [esp Warre] was so good, not due to any fault or poorness to 60s/70s).

One extra point from my notes; pre-90, the quality of the Malvedos single-quintas seemed to be noticeably poorer than the declared VPs (which makes sense, but I was surprised it was so marked) while from 90+ the SQ seems much improved.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by griff »

PhilW wrote:One extra point from my notes; pre-90, the quality of the Malvedos single-quintas seemed to be noticeably poorer than the declared VPs (which makes sense, but I was surprised it was so marked) while from 90+ the SQ seems much improved.
Are you certain you meant 90+? I don't recall having one.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by PhilW »

griff wrote:
PhilW wrote:One extra point from my notes; pre-90, the quality of the Malvedos single-quintas seemed to be noticeably poorer than the declared VPs (which makes sense, but I was surprised it was so marked) while from 90+ the SQ seems much improved.
Are you certain you meant 90+? I don't recall having one.
I did mean 90+. The only 90+ Malvedos at this tasting was 90, which along with 87 (which I agree should probably have been declared) seemed to me to be miles ahead of the others. I've also previously noted 95 as "ok" and 99 as "good, though immature", hence the overall impression that the single-quinta Malvedos seems to have upped its game from ~90+ (or maybe 87+, but I've not tried 88/89).
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by griff »

PhilW wrote:
griff wrote:
PhilW wrote:One extra point from my notes; pre-90, the quality of the Malvedos single-quintas seemed to be noticeably poorer than the declared VPs (which makes sense, but I was surprised it was so marked) while from 90+ the SQ seems much improved.
Are you certain you meant 90+? I don't recall having one.
I did mean 90+. The only 90+ Malvedos at this tasting was 90, which along with 87 (which I agree should probably have been declared) seemed to me to be miles ahead of the others. I've also previously noted 95 as "ok" and 99 as "good, though immature", hence the overall impression that the single-quinta Malvedos seems to have upped its game from ~90+ (or maybe 87+, but I've not tried 88/89).
I see. You have supplemented your notes ;) I also mistook '90+' to mean greater than as opposed to greater than or equal to :oops:

But I must profess to not seeing the vast gulf. I rather liked the 65.
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Re: 13 November 2012 - A Smattering of Graham and Malvedos

Post by SCP »

A big thank you to Rob for organising this event and allowing me to join at the deep end for my first port tasting experience. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and as well as being my first proper foray into Grahams I probably quadrupled the number of bottles of vintage port that I've tasted :D However, I feel that more training may be in order before I can be vaguely productive the following morning.
My WOTN points were '42 - 3, '55 and '66 - 1.5 each (with the '83 next behind).
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