1977 Croft

[Alex Bridgeman]

Served by Ben Howkins from his cellar to celebrate the launch of his book "Real Men Drink Port" in the Berry Brothers cellars. Mid red colour, clearly mature; 50% opaque. Red fruit on the nose, with some sweetness but also some freah lemon. Blanced sweet fruit on the impact, with gentle acidity supporting mature fruit. Medium weight and elegant, full of tropical fruit - melons and kiwi. Very tasty, develops well on the palate. Sweet and pleasant aftertaste, with a lovely elegance to the lingering finish. Not a blockbuster, but a port at a perfect point of maturity and with the balance and elegance to last for years. A significant amount of variability across bottles in the case was noted in the levels of TCA, with some quite spoiled and some completely untainted. 88/100. 1 hour decant on 11 November 2011.

[RAYC]

Tasted from at least 5 or 6 different bottles out of a full case (and quite possibly more).

All opened on pop and pour basis. Significant variaton in the bottles i tried with one bottle badly corked and perhaps one other (maybe two?) with low level TCA.

By no means a big port, but has a nice elegance to it and was a thoroughly enjoyable drop. I would guess is in the mid-point of its maturity profile. Good citric finish and balance of freshness with maturity. I would rate the good bottles ***+ (89), and expect that these might have been bumped up a point/star with more time to breathe after decanting. I would certainly be a buyer at the right price.

For some reason I thought that Cr77 had a reputation for being slightly iffy. AHB thought not. Maybe i conflated Croft 85 and Dow 77.