I just opened and decanted the Offley L.B.V. 2000 which I bought shortly after my rather disappointing experience with the Kopke L.B.V. 2003.
In two ways this was a new experience for me: my first port with a real cork and the first one I decanted. Another two virginities los, Derek would say .
I will post a TN later, in the meantime I have a question about sediment. I decanted the first 2/3 of the bottle freehand and the remainder through an unbleached coffeefilter, mainly to see what the sediment would look like. There was hardly any sediment, just the odd speck that looked like a dark red coffee grind. I had expected the sediment to be much finer.
Now I wonder what the sediment in VPs looks like and how much of it is in those... Does it also depend on age? Do some VPs have more sediment than others (of about the same age)?
It's strange that a 2000 LBV shows a sediment that resmbles coffee grind - normally, all modern LBVs are filtered before bottling. I never saw any sediment in a recent (and modern) LBV so far.
As for Vintage Port, it almost always builds sediment on the bottom side of the bottle (if laid down). The amount of sediment in Vintage Port is strongly correlated to the VP's age. The Quinta do Vesuvio 1994 VP, for instance, already has quite a bit of it (I recently opened one of those gems ). It's hard to describe how it looks like, but I can assure you that it does not look very attractive (the I-want-to-eat-you-right-away factor is not there). But a friend told me that if you cook the sediment mildly for two hours in a frying pan together with bits of onions and serve this with paté, it's a treat. I definetely have to try that one.
*Disclaimer: All educated guesses from drinking alot =)
Alot of the filtering is via racking methods and not necessarily a filtration method like our useful coffee filter,
because of such an LBV, if left in the bottle long enough will still throw some sort of sediment as the tannins? seem to clump together. (unless the wine maker did indeed use a formal filtration method, then you'd be devoid of alot of sediments)
the last sandeman 77 i popped threw a huge amt of sediment. I think some of it also has to do with if the bottle was shook or not. You might end up with a cloudier port instead of a clear one.
Well, in a way the Offley L.B.V. 2000 is rather strange. It is in a nearly black bottle with a real cork (VP-style?). On the bottle was the instruction to store it horizontally, no mention of it being unfiltered though.
I was told by some to expect an unfiltered L.B.V. But after decanting the colour was unclouded red to dark red. The Kopke L.B.V. 2003 I had last week was far darker (almost black) and murky by comparison, when swirled around in the glass it would leave a very visible film on the part of the glass where the port had touched it and seemed to cling to it tenaciously. Nothing like this with the Offley.
On second inspection of the coffee filter, in daylight, the specks now seem to look more like tiny flakes. Despite these flakes I would guess the Offley L.B.V. was filtered at least somehow. But I'm not sure...
How do Crusted Ports and Vintage Ports look after decanting?
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