All the Sandemans had a distinctive taste, which HEG likened to almonds. I disagreed, but couldn’t pin it down. None of us liked this distinctive taste, and it aged badly, with the order of preference (within the Sandemans) being 1977 better than 1970 magnum, then 1970 single, then 1960. S77 had much more fruit than the other Sandemans.
Of the Fonseca 1970, Warre 1970, and Croft 1970 the best was widely declared to be Fonseca. Darkest, rich, and (though I missed it on the first taste) spicy. Pepper, I then recorded. Excellent. Warre was also rich and full, though without the spice. I said that the Croft 1970 tasted “just like Port”, was mocked, but then all agreed. Fonseca preferred to Warre to Croft, but all very fine.
The following morning, with ODM fresh from the Chicago flight, we compared Sandeman 1960 and Sandeman 1970 single. The acid in the former not liked 12 hours previously had helped it survive the night far better than the S70 (and far better than me). S70 single not liked at all in the morning.
Costs: F70 £110, W70 £60, Cr70 £55, S60 £75, others circa £45 per 75cl.
And after some digital archaeology, in the list of old placemats
jdaw1 wrote:
30 Nov 02 www.jdawiseman.com/port/20021130_Sandeman_1970s.pdf R. In Fulham: Sandemans, and 1970s A draft of these placemats was made by hand in Adobe Illustrator, about three weeks before the event. (The Illustrator file was converted to PDF in March 2015.) Placemats for earlier events were also made in Illustrator. But the used placemats were made in PostScript. So this seems to have been the event at which placemats switched from being artisanal to being industrial.