2025: 2000 Horizontal, Mon 10 Feb, B&F

[jdaw1]

As organised by George G., on Monday 10th February 2025, Some of the usual folks gathered in the Boot & Flogger, for a horizontal of 2000s.

Woe betide! What has become of us‽ A horizontal of Port from this century^†. Yes yes, the world has other disasters afoot, but this disaster is afoot here: what has become of us‽

Links:

• Review of the event as a whole;
• Tasting notes:
  • 2000 Taylor;
  • 2000 Fonseca;
  • 2000 Croft;
  • 2000 Dow;
  • 2000 Warre;
  • 2000 Graham;
  • 2000 Quinta do Vesuvio;
  • 2000 Martinez;
  • 2000 Cockburn;
  • 2000 Gould Campbell;
  • 2000 Smith Woodhouse;
  • 2000 Quarles Harris;
  • 2000 Sainsbury's Taste The Difference;
  • 2000 Niepoort;
  • 2000 Niepoort Secundum;
  • 2000 Sandeman;
  • 2000 Sandeman Vau;
  • 2000 Portal;
  • 2000 Osborne;
  • 2000 Quinta do Passadouro;
• The placemats (and discussion about);
• The food order;
• Planning and arrangements.

† Please allow, or at least forgive, the non-pedantic definition.

[winesecretary]

I think that technically 2000 is last century, or certainly last millennium.

[Glenn E.]

I think that technically 2000 is last century, or certainly last millennium.

Feel free to blame Prince for confusing everyone.

And Y2K.

2000 is 100%, definitely, no argument allowed last century and last millennium.

[flash_uk]

I spy a footnote

[jdaw1]

I spy a footnote

Which was there from the first draft.

[Mike J. W.]

I don't think you all have enough Port.

[jdaw1]

[jdaw1]

My TNs posted — I encourage others to do likewise.

Lots of very dark very opaque Port, dominated by black fruits and white pepper. This is a a middle to slightly-junior proper declaration, which will provide much drinking pleasure but not greatness. Some were wrong (hopefully merely unlucky bad bottles); much will be drunk with pleasure.

And its drinking window as now opened: comence.

[flash_uk]

Many thanks to George and all who threw in a hand to assist. Very enjoyable evening in great company as ever.

Notable dryness in many of the ports on parade, and not much sweetness to be found anywhere. And so not really my kind of port. As the scoring shows, I liked T, F, D,W. The Graham I sense was not perhaps at its best, so judgement on that one reserved for another day. Pretty much everything was in the drinking window. Be interested to see comments from others, but I didn't find anything that makes me think these ports will further develop in any significant way. Based on this tasting, I'd have the 2000s behind '94 and '97 as an overall vintage. Will be interesting to see where the 2003s are at in a few weeks' time.

[mcoulson]

Splendid evening George - thanks for your effort to organise - a most enlightening wizz round the '00 vintages

[M.Charlton]

[...] Based on this tasting, I'd have the 2000s behind '94 and '97 as an overall vintage. Will be interesting to see where the 2003s are at in a few weeks' time.

Absolutely. I will put the list of Ports together soon. Would there be interest to try to mirror, to the extent that it is possible, the Ports from this tasting with those of the 2003 vintage for comparative purposes?

[flash_uk]

[...] Based on this tasting, I'd have the 2000s behind '94 and '97 as an overall vintage. Will be interesting to see where the 2003s are at in a few weeks' time.

Absolutely. I will put the list of Ports together soon. Would there be interest to try to mirror, to the extent that it is possible, the Ports from this tasting with those of the 2003 vintage for comparative purposes?

It looks like we aren't currently seeing Mz, SW, S in the 2003 listing, but we will have N, Kr and Rr which were not present at the 2000. Other than that, there's pretty good commonality.

Based on the few '03s I have tasted, I am expecting a much stronger showing than the 2000s.

[winesecretary]

Most enlightening evening. Thank you for being such good company. My thanks in particular to nac for broaching so many cases, and to Julian for (re) organising as I threatened to succumb to work.

A broad spread of good to very good ports, with a small number of disappointing ones. But nothing really fabulous. Fonseca for the win and Dow as the sleeper are my picks; but I’m going to enjoy the Niepoort and Vesuvio in the meantime.

[Glenn E.]

Amusingly, the top 3 Ports (Fonseca, Vesuvio, Niepoort) only collected 3 first place votes amongst them. (Only 7 were cast.)

Also amusingly, Alex did not vote for any of the 3 in any way.

[hadge]

It was a very interesting evening, there was nothing that I wanted to rush out and buy. My general thought are the tannins are fully integrated, with the rich fruits. Some of them are closing down and moving on to the next stages. This isn’t going to be a great vintage but not a bad one either.

[Glenn E.]

It sounds like the general opinion is that it's perhaps similar to 1983? A good year, but not a great one, and with no Ports that truly stand out?

[flash_uk]

IMG_2748.JPG (3.15 MiB) Viewed 27749 times

[Bertie3000]

Thank you George for organising a really enjoyable evening. No port really stood out to me on the night. I have had the Sandeman a couple of times now and that, along with Vesuvio, are the only ones I will look to buy going forwards. The Fonseca felt far too young to me and could in time become the top port from the vintage.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I’m finally making the time to post my overall impressions of the 2000 vintage based on this tasting.

My view of the 2000 vintage at that tasting was that there were some wines which are going to be excellent - the usual names - but they need another 20 years to get there and are a little bit unbalanced and not showing their best at the moment.

There were also some Ports which were very nice but which are not going to be better in 20 years, but make for very decent current drinking - Portal and Osborne being good examples.

If I was to be buying one of the vintages from around the turn of the millennium, it would be the 1997s. They are pretty tasty right now and I think will generally improve for a couple of decades. And they are cheap compared to 1994, 2000 and 2003.

I’m not at the 2003 horizontal so won’t be able to balance my opinions against the vintage’s performance as a group, but the occasional bottle of 2003 I open at the moment has done nothing to cause me to doubt my overall impression of 2003 compared to 2000.