1983 Taylor

[winesecretary]

A bottle that went to the US (imported by Charles LeFranc Cellars, according to the label) on release, purchased by my host for $19.95 in early 1986 and well cellared by him since.

90 minute decant.

Full dark red. Characteristic Taylor violets on the nose, then a little cherry.

Big and plummy flavours in the mouth but structure means not an overly sweet presentation. None of the characteristic Taylor heat.

This perfectly stored bottle was comfortably the best bottle of Taylor 1983 I have ever participated in. Three of us dispatched it in about forty minutes flat.

Consumed 28/6/23

[mcoulson]

So basically a lot better than our '83 evening ..

[winesecretary]

Yes indeed! I was frankly surprised by it. I don't know whether the stuff that went to the US was 100% homogenous with the stuff that came to the UK, or whether it was just the impeccable storage since, or luck.

[Glenn E.]

Over the years we have noticed several apparent discrepancies between UK bottles and US bottles. 1985 Taylor is another example - you in the UK seem to like it quite a lot, at times even preferring it to 1985 Fonseca, which makes our eyes go wide over here in the US. For us the Taylor is rather pedestrian, while the Fonseca is usually spectacular. Taylor ranges from 90-93 points while Fonseca ranges from 93-97 (and the lower end of those usually feel like they're bottles in a down phase, that had we waited 5 years might have been on the high end of that range).

This is good to hear about 1983 Taylor, though. I'm hoping to do a partial horizontal of 1983 later this year but am receiving some pushback about it due to the quality of the vintage.

[winesecretary]

I don't know the extent to which barrels of port were mixed together before bottling in this era. Into the 1970s even at prestigious Bordeaux chateaux many were bottling barrel by barrel; now of course they rack everything from barrel to tank and bottle at once. Even after the end of the bulk port trade in the 1970s, it would I expect have been very expensive to have a big stainless tank only to be used once a year for blending. So I suspect that you might end up with two things (i) bottling at slightly different times for shipping to different markets (ii) bottling from different casks for shipping to different markets. So casks 1-20 might be bottled (possibly via some intermediate mixing in a vat) in October for shipping to the US and casks 21-40 might be bottled (again with some intermediate mixing) for shipping to the UK market in November. Anyway, on the strength of this bottle, the US got the best of the 1983 Taylor!