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Shipped to the UK under sail by Port O’Bristol by Xisto! Very attractive colour, almost translucent and luminous pink in the centre, fading through orange to nothing on the rim. Nose is very good. A complex mix of dried fruit, some sweetness and even a little cedar or other wood. In the mouth, more complexity prevails. There is a little fresh fruit with a touch of acidity, then a buttery sensation of toffee. The aftertaste is long but with an intriguing dryness. This is an excellent 10 year old tawny that tastes much older than it is.

Date: 13th October 2020

Rated*: C-

http://www.jacob-head.com/port/records/ ... -Old-Tawny

* A Note on Ratings

My rating system attempts to answer the question “is this a good Port?” one of three ways: N—No; P—Possibly; or C—Certainly. Ports generally are rated against others of their category. Therefore, a Ruby Port which I rate as C for Certainly good, might not be as good as a Vintage Port which receives the same rating. I sometimes modify my rating with a plus or minus indicating that the Port is better or worse than might be expected for this category.

I had a lovely chat yesterday with one of the owners of Xisto wines and have been sent some photos of one of their sailing trips. I also love the way there is a link on the www.xistowines.co.uk website which allows you to see where the ships are at any time.

But the main reason I replied to this tasting note is that I discovered that these are Johnny Hoelzer's wine. My memory is a little vague, but I believe that Johnny's father (uncle perhaps?) was the MD of Croft in the 1940s. Purely by chance we bumped into him one year at la Rosa and he ended up joining us for dinner with a bottle of Croft 1945. He opened a bottle of his 10 year old tawny and I was stunned at how good it was. My view of his wine that evening was entirely consistent with that of Jacob.

They are really nice guys. I exchanged a couple of emails with them when I ordered: they were quite interested in how I found their website and why I was buying some Port from them! I plan to buy some more of this 10 YO Tawny from them when I have cleared my existing stocks since, as you say, it is excellent.

I do wonder whether, one day, we could get together enough interest to order a barrel of “I can’t believe it’s not Port™” to be sailed over to be bottled in the UK like the old days?

It looks like Johnny Hoelzer also worked for Croft, going by the Quinta’s website (and assuming that’s the chap who is also known as João Cálem Hoelzer!). I also didn’t realise there were any Cálem’s involved in the industry, although I guess none of the names should surprise anyone...