1990 Gilbert LBV

Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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JacobH
Quinta do Vesuvio 1994
Posts: 3300
Joined: 16:37 Sat 03 May 2008
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1990 Gilbert LBV

Post by JacobH »

Gilbert’s is an old Port brand, rarely encountered. In 2001 it was given a completely mad make-over by Amorim (the cork company that also owns Quinta Nova de Nossa Senhora do Carmo) who truncated its name down to ‟G Port”.

The 1990 LBV is a somewhat more restrained affair and since this bottle predates the re-branding, I am not in a position, unfortunately, to comment on whether it tastes like ‟the Port of Force...” (&c. &c.).

Anyway, unusually, this had had 5 years in wood before being bottled in 1995. The bottle did not mention if it was filtered or not, but produced quite a lot of sediment on decanting so possibly not.

At 1+ hours, it is a medium plumy colour in the middle, fading to translucence. A little bit cloudy, unfortunately, but not unbearably so.

On the nose, it is rather restrained and elegant. There is some toffee sweets, mixed with a nice floral perfume.

In the mouth, the initial entry is somewhat soft. Their is some distant primary fruit but it has mostly faded. If this were a VP, I might be tempted to suggest it was a minor vintage from the 1970s. The mid-palate is slightly unpleasant, with a wet paper-bag sensation (though more in the sense of an over-tired wine than being corked). The aftertaste improves things considerably. Reasonably long, it has the taste of fresh under-ripe firm cherries, with is rather pleasant.

Perhaps this is a bad time to be drinking this wine; it may have been a bit more robust as a mature Port a few years ago, and would improve to an ‟old” Port with all sorts of tertiary flavours coming through in a few more years (assuming they don’t fade to nothing).

It will be interesting to see how this develops in the decanter.
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JacobH
Quinta do Vesuvio 1994
Posts: 3300
Joined: 16:37 Sat 03 May 2008
Location: London, UK
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Re: 1990 Gilberts LBV

Post by JacobH »

At 24+ hours, the nose has faded quite a bit, with only the distant ends of what it was before. In the mouth it has lost that unpleasant mid-palate sensation (hurray!) but has retained the other elements, making it a rather nice, drinkable Port.
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