1985 Warre

[jdaw1]

The presence of Alex B. in New York triggered a tasting (arranged via this thread, and discussed in this review) to which:

• Alex B. brought Kopke 1985;
• jdaw1 brought Warre 1985 and Warre 1977;
• g-man+♀ (Stephanie) brought Sandeman 1977 and Rebello Valente 1977;
• Bob Heckart brought Graham 1985.

This thread contains the tasting notes for the Warre 1985.

[jdaw1]

Brown-edged mid-red. Nosing of, more than anything else, red fruit. Alas too hot, though otherwise soft, and of medium length. Good VP; unexceptional.

[Conky]

The Warres 80 constantly seems to defeat its 85 counterpart.

[g-man]

This was my WOTN, me and julian disagree a bit on our taste profiles, but then again Julian simply has had much more port in his life then I've drunk water in mine.

nose of cinnamon and light hints of figs?

a light purple that tutrned into a reddish hue, I didn't notice the brown edge, but that might have been due to lighting.

It was a bit rough on the palate to start, but it had the stuff of a muscular port ...

With a bit of mastication, the sweet red berries with a 30+ sec finish of sweet toffee with a slight tinge of bitter oak.

I personally wish it was smoother for this to be a great port.

[Alex Bridgeman]

7 hours in the decanter before tasting. Mid red colour, thinning but holding into the rim. A candied nose, a little like Turkish Delight. Slightly bitter entry, very acidic but had good redcurrant development in the midpalate. Nicely integrated in the mouth but the finish starts off very hot before coming back into balance and lasting a long time. With time in the glass, the entry becomes smoother but the acidic harshness simply moves to the beginning of the midpalate - and even starts to develop some bananna tones! The aftertaste calms down and develops a very nice peppery bite. Around the median for drinking now but is likely to improve over the next decade as the acidity and alcohol integrate. 5-6 or 89/100.

[RonnieRoots]

Am I correct in concluding that this port did not suffer from VA, although it was very acidic?
That's good news, and in that case it was certainly better than the bottle I tasted. That was bottled nailpolish.

[jdaw1]

Nose not spoilt by VA; taste was too hot, though cooled with the passage of time.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I didn't pick up any VA at all. We did have a conversation about VA since Jeff was asking about it in the context of the '85s. This means that if there was even a hint of VA present then we would have picked it up.

If I had any of these, I would probably leave them alone for 2-5 years before opening one to see how it is getting on.

Alex