NV Cockburn Special Reserve

KillerB · Post by **KillerB** » 02:19 Tue 25 Mar 2008

Bought at a low price with the prime purpose of sweetening chilli and enhancing Bolognese. Did a chilli tonight but thought I'd better taste to see whether my prediliction to slag this off was warranted.

Tasted soon after opening. Was a red drink. Was gloopy. Was a bit sweet. Had a dry, verging on acrid aftertaste that was deeply unpleasant.

Errmmm... it was horrible.

Post by **DRT** » 03:24 Tue 25 Mar 2008

Thank the Lord, I thought fo one minute you were going to say it was drinkable and we had all been missing a trick for years. I think we should continue to live by the age-old Douro motto:

Long live the Republic,
Long live the People,
Let them eat cake,
...and let them die happy,
Long live the tripe they drink named Cock-burn Special Reserve,
...and keep the good stuff for us.

(c) Barron Forrester

Derek

KillerB · Post by **KillerB** » 13:41 Tue 25 Mar 2008

It reminded me of why I didn't like Port and then thought that Taylor's and Graham's LBVs were good. It's the stuff that we were brought up believing was the epitome of Port and I always hated it.

And now I know that I was right.

Made an acceptable chilli but might not be so good for a Bolognese.

RonnieRoots · Post by **RonnieRoots** » 10:05 Wed 26 Mar 2008

Joy.

This is the best port that I can currently buy.

KillerB · Post by **KillerB** » 13:08 Wed 26 Mar 2008

RonnieRoots wrote:Joy.

This is the best port that I can currently buy.

Serves you right for crossing the border.

RonnieRoots · Post by **RonnieRoots** » 20:54 Fri 02 May 2008

Alright, about a month ago I had to buy a bottle of this because I wanted to make pasta sauce. Made the sauce (despite the port), stuck the bottle in the fridge and tried to forget about it.

A sudden urge for port made me decide to pour a glass tonight. Served cold and from a lemonade glass: sweet, with a certain sweetness. Other than that it's clearly sweet, and notably sweet. The finish is highly interesting, as it will kill all the bacteria in your throat. Vicious. Finish tastes like vomit. Not sure I'm going to finish my glass...

I must admit that I also tried it shortly after I bought the bottle. It was notably worse then, as it didn't have the cover-up of the amount of sweetness (well, it was sweet of course, but not so much) and it was even hotter than now. So, if you have a bottle of this: leave it in the fridge for as long as you possibly can. It will get better.

Post by **DRT** » 21:16 Fri 02 May 2008

Ronnie,

Given your state of Port isolation perhaps you could try an experiment to see whether or not it is possilble to improve your Cockburn SR by blending it with something else.

For example: Mix 125ml of CSR with 125 ml of a good full-bodied dry red wine. Add a splash of brandy to bring the alcohol content back up to 20% (you do the maths, I can't be bothered). Leave it to breathe for a while so that the harsh alcohol from the brandy blows off.

Taste and report back here in a thread titled 2008 Oman Special Reserve

Derek

RonnieRoots · Post by **RonnieRoots** » 11:18 Sat 03 May 2008

An even better idea might be to try to fortify some camel's urine and see how much better that is than the CSR.

Post by **DRT** » 12:00 Sat 03 May 2008

RonnieRoots wrote:An even better idea might be to try to fortify some camel's urine and see how much better that is than the CSR.

Good idea. I would suggest you try both methods described above and then serve them blind alongside an untouched CSR control sample and see if you can spot the difference.

It could be the first

Off-line in Oman

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 22:36 Sat 03 May 2008

You know, I think that we ought to have a Ruby Port blind tasting as the theme for one of our offlines. I'd like to try the CSR and see if it really is as bad as you make out - could it be worse than Cruz Ruby? What is the best ruby around, Javali or Grahams?

Would be interesting to try.

KillerB · Post by **KillerB** » 22:50 Sat 03 May 2008

AHB wrote:You know, I think that we ought to have a Ruby Port blind tasting as the theme for one of our offlines. I'd like to try the CSR and see if it really is as bad as you make out - could it be worse than Cruz Ruby? What is the best ruby around, Javali or Grahams?

Would be interesting to try.

Javali is excellent. Cruz, we all agreed was better than CSR. Six Grapes is a very expensive Ruby. Throw Warrior, Bin 27, Midnight and a few others and I thin we have an off-line.

Post by **jdaw1** » 00:52 Sun 04 May 2008

If you thought the LBV tasting was down-market…

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 20:10 Sun 04 May 2008

jdaw1 wrote:If you thought the LBV tasting was down-market…

Now, now. Port snobbery is not allowed.

RonnieRoots · Post by **RonnieRoots** » 20:36 Sun 04 May 2008

A Ruby tasting is definitely interesting. But may I suggest keeping some bottles of good VP at hand for drinking?

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 20:55 Sun 04 May 2008

Or maybe sneaking a bottle of Morgan '91 into the line-up to see if people can spot it?

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