Before
Ages ago my first Port, the first one I tasted, was Taylor 1970. The 1970 Vintage is the Vintage of my era.
And in the
1970 horizontal in January 2009 the great shippers were great, the medium shippers were great, mostly the weak shippers were great, and only
Hutcheson was a whoopsie. That was then. It was younger; we were younger; I was … move along, nothing to see here.
This
So, to the Ports as of 2025. And the 1970s have moved decisively past active middle age. The whole-vintage summary TN might be red-brown 40% opaque, early-palate dry moving to drier for mid- and late-palate, mid-weight, fruit gone or a hint of cherries, decent length.
Flight 0, on Thursday, had many for which the description ‘mediocre’ would be unfairly flattering. My favourite two were the BOB
Thienpoint (Butler Nephew) and
Dolamore, though the consensus was that the former was first. (Well, the real winner was the
Graham tregnum, but that was somehow deemed separate.)
Without doubt the senior flight was flight 1, within which much to love. (Alas, I somehow lost my TN sheets for this flight. [Edit: found!]) For me
Dow the clear winner, then
Quarles Harris, then
Smith Woodhouse, but the competition for third included both the GCs (
V.P.,
LBV) and
Warre. The
Graham was good but not of the same rank; the window side’s
BBR was corked. Neither
Noval nor
Noval Nacional competed.
Flight 2 had merit.
Taylor definitely senior to the
Vargellas,
Fonseca and
Avery showed very well,
Croft also good.
Flight 3 (Niepoort no-show), led by
Kopke São Luiz, followed by nothing else. Flight 4 was a wash-out.
Conclusion
This vintage has moved from almost-everything-excellent to most-seem-tired-but-a-few-gems-remain. Any resemblance to people born in the sixties and seventies is purely coincidental.
Thanks
This was a monster to organise. Mike was a fool for doing it, and I thank him for this folly. Over a hundred bottles to chase, 2½ dozen people to herd, and yet he made it work. Thank you.
