1964 Taylor Vargellas

[benread]

Drunk as part of the Vargellathon- a tasting of Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas port from 1964 to 1996. Held at The Crusting Pipe on Tuesday 24th March 2009.

Bottle kindly supplied by UncleTom

[uncle tom]

Decanted 11.10 24/3

Another cork that broke, branding barely discernible. Loads of sediment. Much darker than expected.

Now supping a glass of soupy sediment - tastes very much like a Vesuvio. I think this is going to be good..

Tom

[JacobH]

Unfortunately, I managed to mislay my notes so this is from memory.

This was more like what I expected a mature Vargellas to taste like than the '65. Still reasonably dark, and showing quite a lot of fire. I remember a bit of pepper, with perhaps a little of the grassyness which re-emerged with some of the younger Vargellas. I thought it just lost out the '65 on the grounds of not having that vivid toffee-ness on the nose but I guess that's down to personal preference.

[DRT]

This was voted Wine of the Night by 5 of the 9 participants but I'm afraid I wasn't one of them.

Browning with lots of pepper on the nose. My initial taste was recorded as "light and hot" - a second pass around an hour later was recorded as "thicker, but tastes old and fading".

Thanks to Tom for supplying this bottle. Given the experience others had of this wine on the night perhaps I suffered from a contaminated glass?

[AHB]

Pale in colour, with a light - almost orange - rim. Very open nose with sweet citrus (tinned tangerines!) and a touch of white pepper. Very lively in the mouth, really rather spicy but with a very pleasant mango chutney style of sweet fruitiness. Quite a big aftertaste, one which fades to a lower level before slowly fading away. Sweet, elegant and beautiful balance. Good complexity but quite a burn. Drinking very well and likely to fade with more time in the cellar. 89/100. Drunk 24 March 2009.

[uncle tom]

I was not expecting much from this bottle - a job lot bottle of no known provenance, from one of the weaker vintages, and with a level at VTS.

But as soon as I decanted it, I realised that it was going to impress.

A dark, slightly peppery and perfectly mature wine; and the winner of the night.

Tom