2000 Graham LBV

[Alex Bridgeman]

Well, this just goes to show how little I really know about Port. This was served on 22/11/07 on board a flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong at 32,000 feet so I guess that I can blame the altitude. Having tasted this, I was certain it was the Grahams 2000 Vintage Port and the stewardess had to show me the bottle to convince me otherwise. Deep, inky black colour with a dark purple rim, very youthful. Nose very closed, toffee predominantly but lots of work brings out some blackcurrant. Smooth, silky and dry entry but fruit hiding in the background. Once you let the mid-palate come through there is just an ever-growing wall of fruit (damsons, blackcurrants and morello cherry) with a pleasant but very noticeable tannic and acidic core that fades away again to reveal yet more fruit just before you swallow. Great complexity. When you do swallow, the aftertaste starts a little too emptily, but develops into a cheek tingling black cherry and dark chocolate length that goes on for a very long time. Extremely impressive and a very welcome surprise. Absolutely delicious and even as a filtered LBV, I think this will be better in 5 years time. Tuck some away and see but the full vintage must be really impressive if this is the LBV. (From a half bottle.)

[Andy Velebil]

This is one of my favorite LBV's from 2000, a solid bottle.

[Axel P]

Alex,

you lucky guy. I do fly more often than you do, but I never drink whilst flying.

Yesterday I had the Grahams LBV 96 (bottled 02) and the 01 (bottled 07) side by side each out of a Literbottle to see how capable of ageing this wine is as it is filtered.

Remarkably how intense the 96 still was. The 01 likewise to the 00 LBV is enormously fruity and easy to drink, but the 96 was only a slight bit less fruity, which might be an outcome of a not-so-strong-year.

The other thing remarkable when comparing these two wines was the change of the bottle. The 96 had the glass-insignia of Grahams on the bottle and the bottle was green. Nowadays the bottle is brown and totally plain.

Axel