2021: 1980s, Wed 20 Oct

[jdaw1]

A tasting of 1980s, on Wednesday 20th October 2021, at the Boot & Flogger, arranged George G.

Links:

• Review of the evening as a whole;
• 1980 Fonseca;
• 1980 Taylor;
• 1980 Croft Quinta da Roêda;
• 1980 Sandeman;
• 1980 Offley;
• 1980 Burmester;
• 1980 Dow;
• 1980 Graham;
• 1980 Warre;
• 1980 Smith Woodhouse;
• 1980 Gould Campbell;
• 1980 Quinta do Noval Nacional;
• 1980 Niepoort;
• 1980 Cálem Quinta da Foz;
• Placemats (mentioned in issue 151; a revisit of the design of 02Mar2012);
• Planning and arrangements.

[winesecretary]

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[winesecretary]

A interesting, but overall I think slightly disappointing, tasting. It was made much more interesting by generous donations from Tony (F, CrR) and Julian (NN).

1 - Gould Campbell
2 - Smith Woodhouse
3 = Warre, Taylor
5 - Sandeman
6 - Offley
7 = Niepoort, Dow
9 - Calem Foz
10 - Graham
11 = Noval Nacional, Burmester, Fonseca
Faulty - Croft Roeda

Very much a Symington win.

I will buy some of the excellent Gould Campbell, and some Offley, I think, for drinking in the relatively near future, but I have reasonable amounts of Dow, Graham and Smith Woodhouse and I do not feel compelled to buy any of the others.

[Glenn E.]

Interesting results. Not surprising that the Symington offerings were tops, but some orders are not what I would have expected.

I'm not surprised by the GC performance. I would have expected it to be top 3, but the other 2 I would have included in that group are Graham and Dow.

I would have had SW and F in the second group, with Sandeman and Taylor following, but no expectations from any others. I generally don't find too much to like about 1980.

Too bad you didn't have a Ferreira... that's usually also in my second group with SW and F.

[akzy]

It was a very fun tasting to attend, thank you again George for organising.
My overall comments are that there was very little separating most the Ports. Also, lots of muted noses. The question I have remaining is "were the good Ports of the evening good in the company or good Ports?". Maybe we have to enter the matrix to find out...

[JacobH]

Thank you to everyone involved in arranging this tasting. It was wonderful to come back to a offline after many, many years.

1980 was not a vintage I knew very well, although I perhaps had lower expectations of it than many others which is why I was quite pleased about the quality of the wines.

It is also always enjoyable when some of the lesser shippers do better than the first tier ones! I thought the Gould Campbell and Smith Woodhouse were quite similar and the best of the night. Thereafter, there was a big cluster of Ports. I went for Sandeman for my third placed one but there wasn’t much in it for me between that, the Taylor, Offley and the Warre. I also quite enjoyed the Burmester and the Niepoort although it seemed my palate didn’t detect flaws that others saw.

I’ll try to post some notes over the next few days.

[M.Charlton]

My thanks to George for organising this tasting, and to the TPFers in attendance for making the tasting so enjoyable. My thanks also to the two TPFers who donated bottles, even though they could not attend, and to the excellent staff at the B&F.
My summary was that many of the Ports were much more muted/non-descript than I was expecting, and that the mixed-bag nature of the wines present was confirmed by the WOTN analysis. Very surprising, in a positive sense, was the GC! I certainly wouldn't have guessed that it would make WOTN relative to the wine list we had available to us. The NN was surprising, albeit in another sense. I will keep my eyes out for TNs here and elsewhere to see what others think about this particular wine.

[flash_uk]

Sad to have missed this one. Not surprised where Fonseca finished. Very surprised where Dow and Graham finished.