The bottles were mostly opened using tongs heated to a bright red glow in the pub's fireplace, much to the entertainment of the regulars. (I wonder if more people come into the pub on the December evening we're there just to watch?) The thread used to organise the evening can be found here.
The wines opened and shared were:
- Graham 1970 from Andy Milner's cellar, used to toast Andy and some recently departed friends;
- Dickens Fine Old Ruby - a 70cl bottle of ruby Port, perhaps tawny, which was bottled for Dickens Wine House of York. Our best guess was that the Port was bottled in the 1980s and was the first time many of us had tasted a Port bottled under screwcap. Peculiar indeed!
- Taylor 194? - the last digit from the branding on the cork was obscured by a big stain. Our best efforts to read it suggested the last digit was an 8, but no-one could be quite certain. Whatever it was, it was good and got third place in the Wine of the Night vote.
- Fonseca 1922 - wow! Just wow! An astonishing wine with so much fruit. Still at its peak and our wine of the night.
- Croft 1960 - a very good bottle which picked up a couple of points in the Wine of the Night scoring.
- Unknown Sherry - no branding on the cork. The consensus view was that it was probably an oxidatively aged Sherry, perhaps an Oloroso, from the late 19th century. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Port lovers at the table awarded it no points in the Wine of the Night vote.
- Taylor 1908 - the vintage was known from the wax capsule but the shipper was only discovered from the cork.
- Unknown Port - the only Port we were unable to identify, this was sealed with a short and unbranded cork. From the appearance of the bottle and the style of the wine inside we speculated that this could have been Vintage Port from a Portuguese shipper from or shortly after WW2.
- Martinez 1922 - how fabulous to have two bottles of 1922 Vintage Port! This wasn't as good as the Fonseca, but it was splendidly delicious. Fourth place in the Wine of the Night vote.
- Delaforce 1945 - I've never seen a bottle of this before, let along tasted it. A new tasting note to appear on the tasting note database shortly.
- Cockburn 1950 - not a wine which has much of a reputation, but this showed fabulously well.
- Henriques & Henriques 1927 bar steward - George really wanted to share this exceptional wine with us at the Christmas tasting — and I am so glad he did. It was monumental, and won second place in the Wine of the Night vote.
Winner of the "What is it?" award is Tom, who scored 3 points.
All in all, an exceptional night where we had no bad bottles! Thank you Tom for hosting us once again.