1983 Cockburn

[Alex Bridgeman]

The second of the pair of bottles of Cockburn '83 that I purchased in March 2006. Decanted cleanly and easily off some well settled and heavy sediment (after only 1 day of standing upright). The nose on decanting was muted and a little musty.

After 2½ hours in the decanter the wine was a clear and sparkling deep ruby. The nose was of sweet redcurrants but with still with a dusty / musty tone that distracted from what could have been very attractive. In the mouth the wine brought an initial impact of sweet and ripe redcurrants and cranberries. Plenty of acidity providing structure in the mid palate but not a huge amount of development. The tannins come through late and are clearly evident - and surprisingly dense - on the aftertaste, which is very pleasant and brings a lot of aniseed.

A decent wine, but very much in the middle of the pack and not a bottle that supports the very positive reviews that this wine obtains from some drinkers. 5/6 or 87/ 100.

[RonnieRoots]

There seems to be a lot of bottle variaton with this port. Luckily I've encountered a good bottle both times I had this, and I can assure you that it's a very good port when it's in a good state (does that sentence make any sense...?)