A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

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JacobH
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A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

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JacobH
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by JacobH »

This was my first experience of tasting some of the older offerings of Warre; I think the oldest I had had before was the (gorgeous) 1970. The lesson from this tasting seems to be that Warre is not a wine for the very long-term; unfortunately those Ports from the ’50s and ’40s seemed a bit past it. That said, in the right drinking window, Warre can produce some lovely wines. The ’70 and ’85 were two favourites whilst the ’63 and ’66, albeit in a slightly different style, are also very drinkable.

Many thanks to all those involved in arranging this!
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DRT
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by DRT »

I fear that Jcob may be being unfair to the house of Warre in his assessment.

I have had much better experiences of Warre VP (old, middle-aged and young) than we experinced at this tasting and I don't think the way that these wines showed on the night is representative of what Warre's ports have to offer. Like many others who attended this event I am struggling to pinpoint why these wines did not show as well as expected. Was it the glasses? Decanters? Air conditioning? Temperature? - I simply don't know - but I do know that I have had many of these wines before and all of them are capable of being much better than they were on the night.

Looking through my notes, which I am not inclined to post, the recurring theme with most of the wines was a dull, dusty nose and a sour/bitter taste in the mouth. These are not characteristics that I would associate with Warre VP.

Thank you to those who organised the event and supplied the wines. It is a great pity that these wines did not live up to expectation on the night.

Derek
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RonnieRoots
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by RonnieRoots »

Extremely odd. And what a pity. There were some wonderful ports in the line-up.
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jdaw1
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by jdaw1 »

All these bottles were sub-standard. Compared to a more recent bottle of W70, they were strongly acidic. Something contaminated this port.

Hypotheses:
  • Glasses? Wolfgang said the glasses had been polished: with what, and how badly did it smell?
  • Decanters? For how long unused? Presumably not checked nor primed in advance?
  • The decanting funnel?
If we were dealing with people then ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. We aren’t: all are presumed guilty unless proven otherwise. RAF Club glasses are not to be trusted unless washed in the presence of a competent port-narg. RAF Club polishing cloths are not to be trusted unless checked by a competent port-narg. RAF Club decanters are to be rinsed by a competent port-narg. And that funnel is banned.

Hardline? Yes. But too much potentially excellent port just wasn’t, through no fault of the port.
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JacobH
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by JacobH »

DRT wrote:I fear that Jcob may be being unfair to the house of Warre in his assessment.

I have had much better experiences of Warre VP (old, middle-aged and young) than we experinced at this tasting and I don't think the way that these wines showed on the night is representative of what Warre's ports have to offer.
Fair enough; I was going on what I tasted on that night and am more than happy to repeat the experience :twisted:

That said, to side-step the questions raised by jdaw1, I do wonder about Warre that is around 40 or more years old. The tasting notes on :tpf: aren’t entirely positive and the wines from the ’50s seemed quite tired compared to the (perhaps underperforming) more recent vintages. That might suggest that Warre hits its peak at 30-35 years and, for modern vintages at least¹, doesn’t continue to improve.

(¹ After typing my first post, I remembered that I had tried an older Warre: the 1900; which was probably more full-bodied than most of these from the 1950s)
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Alex Bridgeman
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

I've been rushed off my feet at work the last few weeks so it's taken me a long time to get round to posting in this thread, but I completely agree with Derek's post. I've drunk a reasonable amount of Warre ports from the '60s and '70s and did not find the bottles we tasted were representative of Warre at its best. Very strange - I just don't know what was wrong. I was tasting out of my own Riedel, so unless the wines were killed when first poured into the RAF Club glass, the problem was not with the glasses. I wondered whether the polish used in the room (which smelt of polish when we first entered) or the airconditioning had caused problems. I'm also slightly uncomfortable that the 1970 horizontal tasting we had at the RAF Club in January gave some very odd results, with the traditional high performing wines showing quite poorly. I tend to agree with Julian's suggestion that next time we use the RAF Club we should take care of ALL the arrangements, including the washing and drying the the glasses we will be using.

But three strikes, and the RAF Club will - sadly - have to be out.
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.

2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
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Axel P
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Re: A Warre Vertical; 2x2009, RAF Club London

Post by Axel P »

If I can arrange something in advance to the Nov 13th tasting, let me know.

Axel
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