2025: Thursday 8th May - VE Day 80th Anniversary Tasting of 1945s

[hadge]

Link to planning of the event
Thursday 8th May - VE Day 80th Anniversary Tasting of 1945s

The 1945 dinner review

I arrived armed with bottles, decanters (carafes for Julian) and decanting kit at the Boot and Flogger for this extremely exciting line up of 1945, with a little work we had managed to get nearly all the main shippers.

There had been a little bit of a debate on decanting times for the 45’s, I had gone with the view that we have time at the table, so only an hour beforehand would be a good starting point so most of the ports were decanted at this point, but Neil had gone with 2 hours and Tony around 4 hours. Once all the ports had been decanted and laid out, we started with the Gusbourne 2018 Blanc de Noirs in magnum. This was a very nicely balanced sparkling wine, I can see why people love it, but sparkling wine is just not my thing.

As always, I decided to bring a wild card, 1945 Massandra Red Port from the Sotheby’s Collection. I had never had any of the Massandra wines before, it did need some time to open. It lacks balance with old fruits, it improved and got more interesting as the evening went on, more fruit flavours, but overall, it was remarkably interesting, but still average.

Then onto the main show,

Ramos Pinto, lovely balance, good fruit, medium finish. Lovely drinking and gets an honourable mention. Very good

Ferreira, sadly this was just a little flat, short finish. Perfectly drinkable. Good

Constantino, this was very closed at the start, it took around 2 hours to really open up. Great balance, great fruit, in someways still young, little power in the finish. Excellent (1 point)

Quinta do Noval, Great balance, good soft fruit, little power (which was a little bit of a surprise for me). Honourable mention (did not get the point because of the lack of power I am use to in this port). Excellent

Sandeman, this was the major surprise of the evening, took some time to open up. Great balance, rich fruit, power, maybe lack a little in the finish to make it outstanding. Excellent (1 point)

Taylor, what a port this is, a true big gun of the vintage. Classic Taylor in style. Wonderful balance, great rich fruit, lovely power, still youthful. Long finish. Outstanding (2 points)

Fonseca, where is the classic Fonseca power, has the balance without the power, soft fruit, medium finish. Good

Croft, excellent balance, good fruits, little power, medium to long finish. Excellent (1 point)

Dow, lack balance, a little heat, very dry fruit, maybe over decanted? Average

Graham, excellent balance, soft with a little richness in the fruit, a little power in the finish. Excellent (1 point)

Warre, sadly not classic Warre, lack of balance only because of the finish, lovely soft fruit, a little heat in the finish. Perfectly drinkable but not singing. Good.

Delaforce, just NO! sadly I think that this had be to poor storage (maybe cooked) and just gone. Poor

Overall, this was a tremendous lineup other than the Delaforce, with all the others singing in their own way and at the end of the evening only one port (Delaforce) wasn’t finished, which says it all for me. With so many excellent ports, it made scoring difficult. For me this vintage is in a real sweet spot, the very best have legs for the future but right now it is drinking wonderfully across the board.

[hadge]

some good looking labels

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the scoresheet

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[mcoulson]

Excellent evening and particularly interesting that there were so few 3's and the T that was wotn had no 3's

[Rummy]

Thanks for the write up, Harry. Some very interesting bottles it seems.

[flash_uk]

Tasting notes:

• 1945 Ramos Pinto
• 1945 Ferreira
• 1945 Constantino
• 1945 Quinta do Noval
• 1945 Sandeman
• 1945 Taylor
• 1945 Fonseca
• 1945 Croft
• 1945 Dow
• 1945 Graham
• 1945 Warre
• 1945 Delaforce

[Alex Bridgeman]

In my mind, 1945 is a vintage which is a contender for "best vintage of the 20th century" — along with half a dozen others. Over the 30 years or so that I've been taking notes on the vintage Ports I drink, I am consistently impressed. It's one of the vintages which I would happily accept a glass of even if it was from a shipper I had never heard of.

This tasting simply reinforced that impression. I love 1945 VP. I don't own enough of it to open a bottle every month, but I would if I could. The wines are glorious, rich and full of character. The fruit is dark yet the mace and cinnamon spread themselves throughout the palate. The finishes are astonishing in duration. I can still taste that Graham 1945...

Yes there are winners and not-quite-winners from the vintage. But the winners knock you down and bite your ear they are that brutal. The not-quite-winners have balance and beauty and will not get involved in a fist fight. Generally from this vintage I have Croft at the top, followed by a very closely bunched group of Fonseca, Graham (which has a lot of bottle variation) and Taylor. Dow, Morgan, Noval are a little further behind the pursuing pack. I've only once had a great bottle of Warre.

This tasting did nothing to contradict my experience. My top wines were Graham, Croft and Tayor with Noval a point behind Taylor and Dow and Fonseca both a point behind Noval.

It's a glorious vintage. We really don't need to wait until 2035 to have another 1945 horizontal! I'm free a week on Thursday...