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On Saturday 9^th May 2015 we had a splendid horizontal of 1945 in The RAF Club, ably arranged by Axel Probst/WorldOfPort.de.

Links:

• Review of the evening as a whole;
• The apéritifs:
  • 10Y Andresen, bottled 1945;
  • 1945 Massandra Crimean ‘Port’;
  • 2013 O Port Unidade;
  • 1945 Cruz Veludo colheita;
• The vintages:
  • 1945 Royal Oporto (THRA);
  • 1945 Rebello Valente (GW);
  • 1945 Feuerheerd (CP);
  • 1945 Rozès (WPS);
  • 1945 Morgan (DRT);
  • 1945 Eira Velha (DRT);
  • 1945 Quinta do Noval (GW);
  • 1945 Constantino (AP);
  • 1945 Offley (THRA);
  • 1945 Ferreira (CP);
  • 1945 Cockburn (AP);
  • 1945 Sandeman (GTDS);
  • 1945 Ramos Pinto (VvC);
  • 1945 Warre (PW);
  • 1945 Dow (JDAW);
  • 1945 Graham (WG);
  • 1945 Fonseca (AHB);
  • 1945 Kopke (WPS);
  • 1945 Niepoort (RAYC);
  • 1945 Taylor (AHB);
  • 1945 Croft (DJ);
• Placemats (and parameters by which made);
• Announcement.

An excellent tasting, splendidly arranged by Axel, in which Niepoort just pipped Taylor for the prize, with Croft taking the bronze.

More later.

Excellent indeed. Thank you to those who opened their cellars to allow this to happen.

My only regret from the evening was seeing how much 70 year old port ended up in the buckets.

Perhaps old horizontals should be a little more focussed in the future? Some of these wines would have been sipped enthusiastically on their own but struggled in the presence of the top half dozen. It was a shame to see them poured away.

The traditional vote for the wine of the night.

There followed, by Axel’s command, a vote for “Worst Non-Flawed Wine Of The Night”. Done carelessly this could just be a question of ‘How flawed is flawed?’, so Axel made a ruling that the flawed wines were Morgan, Constantino, Sandeman, and Warre. Other than which we didn’t like Royal Oporto and Feuerheerd, and also Ferreira.

I am not disappointed that AHB and I picked the same top three, albeit that he got them in slightly the wrong order

I am at a complete loss as to why my impression of the Niepoort was so wildly different to everyone else.

Note to self: DRT should not buy old Niepoort based on the recommendation of others.

That was a truly splendid tasting, one which we are unlikely to see again. 23 ports from 1945 in a single line up. Thank you Axel for organising it and for getting us into the RAF Club once again.

I couldn't split the Croft and the Fonseca so made them my joint POTN.

And I consoled myself that most of the port being dumped in the buckets was Morgan, Constantino, Sandeman or Warre.

Thank you for all your contributions to the tasting, which I very much enjoyed. Due to some sentimental reasons I was also very happy to have this tasting in the RAF Club again.

Noted the critique though and fully understood. I had the same feeling myself, but would not have Ports like Offley and Kopke on my scope to almost rival the greatest.

This for me is the learning experience that I get out of these tastings (amongst others).

Axel

An astounding evening, unlikely to be repeated. While there were some faulty wines (including the Dow not mentioned above) it was a great feat to have been able to get bottles of this age from so many producers and a privilege to be able to taste them all. Some of the wines were truly amazing, such as the colour of the Kopke (very dark and lovely), and the Graham, Fonseca, Niepoort, Kopke, Croft, Noval and Eira Vehla were all excellent or better by my ratings.

The RAF club is a very classy venue, and it was a pleasure to have been there again. Thanks again to Axel for all the efforts in putting this together for us all.

It was a brilliant tasting! Also the president's room in the RAF club is a classy venue. Thanks to Axel for organising it all and also let me adopt ports from him and take part in this event. As highlighted before this is an unlikely event to be repeated due to the prices vintage ports from 1945 nowadays command and their scarce availbilty.
As a general theme I found the complexity in flavours in the ports we had the most strinking point. Aside the obvious flawed bts all ports had a very good structure and excellent complexity. DRT is right it was sad to see so much good port ending up in the buckets. Maybe next time we bt a blend and consume it at the next offline. The Boot&Flogger is no open on Sundays; so we could have had an after tasting there....

looking fwd to the next tasting

regards

WS1

I was busy this week, here is my second summarization of an outstanding tasting (now I will make a summer brake).

Please excuse my very bad englisch, but I think most of you will understand it better than my not all that bad german.

I´m proudly present, the video of this unique tasting (some participants will recovery themselves in the scene)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O49BSpx ... e=youtu.be

My TNs posted; THRA’s will be posted soon.

christopherpfaff wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O49BSpx ... e=youtu.be

I wasn’t “celebrating seventy years of peace and friendship in central and western Europe”. I was drinking Port. Which is much more important.

THRA’s TNs have been posted. Other TNs would be welcomed.

I wonder; was this our first tasting where the total age of the wines exceeded 1500 years? (yes, I'm including at least one of the aperitifs, without which we would be 30 years short).