1977 Taylor

[uncle tom]

Decanted 12/3/09 to celebrate young Max's 4th day.

Despite having been stood up for a couple of months, it was not a very clean decant, forcing me to divert to the dregs glass with a good glassful left in the bottle. Average amount of sludgy sediment.

Unlike the last bottle I opened 18 months ago, this bottle had no bottle stink, and the wine was immediately approachable.

Now 24hrs on, there has been virtually no evolution.

This is a good wine, with Taylor's trademark bite and sober nose; but the meniscus is overly clear for a wine of this age, while the tannins remain very persistant, furring my teeth most noticeably. The fruit seems a little tired.

To score;

For immediate gratification, this is a top quartile wine, but not by a mile, so an 8

Where's it going? Quite a hard call, but I think it has seen it's best days now,

- so score 8-7

Tom

[jdaw1]

Very good. And the little fellow is also drinking well, though, at least not yet, T77.

Link to review of other such toastings.

[dcs]

Interesting. I think that most of mine are showingjust a bit younger...showing best the next day. But there is considerable bottle variation... and the leakers don't help. The last one I opened was by far the youngest I have tasted. I selected it out because it had a low fill. I open it - only to realize that he cork is pristine. The low fill was just what it had started with, it wasn't leaking at all. Oh well. At least it was superb!

[uncle tom]

As a post-script, the wine showed a noticeable improvement, with better integration, on the third day.

Tom