14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

What happened?
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jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by jdaw1 »

Good company. Shame about the port. CSD: ‟a wine to gift to people who don’t know about port”. Classic American use of a noun as a verb: what happened to ‟give”?

Summary: 1978 port is light, has VA and artificial sugar. This is not a recommendation.
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benread
Niepoort 1977
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by benread »

An interesting vintage that did not immediately produce any clear winners. Whilst I was less vocal than some, it is probably one of the weakest vintages I have tasted. Many examples of flawed bottles and no stand out wine. That said I did finish a number of my glasses but not a single tasting note. The only note was one to myself. My money can be better spent elsewhere!

Company as ever was good and Chris never ceases to amuse with his descriptions of wines. This man does things with port no one else could contemplate!
Ben
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Vintage 1970 and now proud owner of my first ever 'half-century'!
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Chris Doty
Graham’s Malvedos 1996
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by Chris Doty »

Lovely company, and it was a pleasure for me to meet Axel and Dirk in person for the first time.

1978 vintage port is a sham. Not a single wine was remotely 'good' or 'enjoyable to drink' -- pretty astonishing when you consider that we had 11 bottles present (including both Novals). Disjointed, light, VA, unresolved and bitter alcohol, and generally rubbish. The 'best' wines of the night were only those with least amount of flaws (Nacional and Niepoort, to my taste).

'Worst port tasting possible' was my view, until Wolfgang suggested a Hutchinson vertical. :shock:

No doubt the 1960 session will banish this from my memory.
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jdaw1
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by jdaw1 »

There is an obvious question, and, though it’s close, the answer is yes: ’78 is worse than ’75.
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RonnieRoots
Fonseca 1980
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by RonnieRoots »

Courageous effort, with a hardly surprising outcome. From this list I only had the Bomfim and Niepoort. Both more than 5 years ago. I remember the Bomfim being dead as a dodo (and a backup bottle of something better being much more popular) and the Niepoort as light, still alive but not great (if I remember correctly there were some nice strawberry flavours). I hope the beers afterwards were good! :wink:
Glenn E.
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by Glenn E. »

jdaw1 wrote:There is an obvious question, and, though it’s close, the answer is yes: ’78 is worse than ’75.
I believe this makes you the anti-Parker.

He has started rating wines higher than 100 points (100*). You have now rated them below worthless. :wink:
Glenn Elliott
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by uncle tom »

I had a reasonably good impression of the '78's, although most of my previous encounters had been of the Vargellas.

- Had...

To be fair to the wines, I do think this was the tasting where our luck ran out - I've had very sound Vargellas before, and a decent Roeda. The Noval, I suspect, would have shown better with much more decanting time - in due course, I shall experiment..

The Nacional is OK, but worth little more than a tenth of the price it would command - it is not unlike an Offley '83, for example..

My impression now is that this is a vintage to drink up.

On my 'vintage significance' spreadsheet, I had previously given this vintage a weight of 0.5, (the average for all vintages is 1) - the same as for 1972, and 0.1 point less than for 1982. I have now demoted it to 0.4, while raising '77 to a weight of 2.8

Tom
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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WS1
Cruz 1989
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by WS1 »

Hi there,

I have to say I am very disappointed about this tasting, we had not a single bt which was good. Indeed we had also a lot of bad luck, but notciably, except the corked bt of Bonfirm and the Hutchinson all bts had at least a touch of VA. Hutchinson was again not good at all, but it was suprisingly better than the 1970 Hutchinson we had at the 1970 horicontal.
I also agree with Toms and Julians coments. 1978 is a vintage that needs drinking up and i also fear that overall 1975 will be the better vintage.
I also must say that I am not interested in a 1978 vs 1975 tasting to find out. :wink: :roll:

regards

WS1
"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough"
Mark Twain
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Axel P
Taylor Quinta de Vargellas 1987
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by Axel P »

Thanks for the comments so far. I agree in everything and noted the difference between Ben's description (UK) and Chris' description (US). However I did have the Bomfim and the Niepoort 78 end of last year and they both were at least well drinkable though no really good ports.

Nevertheless for me the company was excellent, food was nice and the wines were at least a lesson learned. I will open a bottle of Bomfim 78 soon and post this TN as well.

Thanks for the support of this (Tom for wines, Julian for placemats and Dirk for organisation)

Axel
worldofport.com
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jdaw1
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by jdaw1 »

Did anybody take pictures of the bottles? Especially the Panascal?
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uncle tom
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by uncle tom »

Not by me. The Panascal had that intricate yellow-ish label design which has been used for a few of their vintages - arguably the most elegant of all the port labels..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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jdaw1
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Re: 14 May 2010, Horizontal of 1978, RAF Club

Post by jdaw1 »

Axel has sent me some pictures — thank you Axel — but more would be welcome.
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