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Consumed at the Old, Odd & Great Off-line at the Portal Restaurant in London on 11th July 2008.

• Links:
  • Arrangements;
  • Placemats;
  • Review of the evening as a whole.
  Wines:
  • 1830 Ferriera vintage port;
  • 1890 Uknown Shipper vintage port;
  • 1890 Unknown Shipper vintage port;
  • 1927 Croft;
  • 1936 Ukranian Massandra;
  • 1963 Warre;
  • 1964 Krohn colhieta branco;
  • 1987 Prager (Napa USA) port;
  • 1989 Skeffington vintage port.

Sotheby’s provided a plastic wrap, with its own label.

Orangey brown. Did the nose have apricots? Certainly sugar. even more certainly it was odd. AHB rightly described the nose as metallic. To taste marmalade, with so much sugar, and even more huge amounts of tannin. So much tannin in a 72-year-old thing of little repute! An odd creature.

Does anyone know what this was made out of? I presume they aren’t growing Touriga Nacional out in the Crimea? What looks like a current website suggests they aren’t producing anything fortified to Port-levels but includes lots of grape varieties which I’ve never heard of like: Ekim-Kara, Kethessia, Capita-n-Kara, Lapa-Kara and Metin-Kara.

I have absolutely no idea from which grapes this was made - is Livadia a region or a grape? The little knowledge that I have of the Massandra collection of wines would imply that there was no consistent blend or type of grapes used for these fortified wines.

My notes on the night:
Livadia wine. Pale colour, a deep variation of honey. An odd, almost soapy, nose with some strange metallic and pine needle tints; not attractive. The odd taste comes through in the mouth but is quickly replaced with sweetness from layers of different kinds of honey. The alcohol shows an initial flash on swallowing but then leaves behind a surge of marmalade that fades rapidly before lingering almost unnoticed for a while. A wine which is perfectly respectable. 86/100. Decanted approximately 2 hours.

AHB wrote:is Livadia a region or a grape?

Livadia