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We tasted 1955s on Tuesday 1^st July 2025, all day at the Boot & Flogger, as organised initially by Christopher, then by JDAW.

Links:

• Review of the event as a whole;
• Tasting notes, lunch:
  • 1955 Taylor single;
  • 1955 Taylor magnum;
  • 1955 Sandeman single;
  • 1955 Sandeman magnum;
  • 1955 Hooper;
  • 1955 Gonzalez Byass;
• Tasting notes, dinner:
  • 1955 Graham;
  • 1955 Warre;
  • 1955 Dow;
  • 1955 Gould Campbell;
  • 1955 Cockburn;
  • 1955 Martinez;
  • 1955 Smith Woodhouse;
  • 1955 Quinta do Noval;
  • 1955 Niepoort;
  • 1955 Fonseca;
  • 1955 Croft;
  • 1955 Morgan;
  • 1955 Offley;
  • 1955 Ferriera;
  • 1955 Tuke Holdsworth;
  • 1955 Mackenzie;
• Planning and arrangement;
• Placemats.

Most, but not all, of the bottles from the event.

and the results from the dinner ....

1st - D - 17
2nd - N - 12
3rd= - Ni - 11
3rd= - G - 11
5th - W - 10
6th - Mz - 7
7th - Mk - 4
8th= - Fr - 3
8th= - Ck - 3
10th - F - 2
11th= - TH - 1 1/2
11th= -GC - 1 1/2
13th - Cr - 1
14th= - Mg - 0
14th= - O - 0
14th= - SW - 0

HM to Mz
DM to F

.

An excellent day; my first London tasting for a while and it was great to be back with everyone.
Lots of thanks to go around, in particular:
- to Christopher for setting up the tasting, and for dropping by to say hi despite unfortunately not being able to take part;
- to Cliff for still supplying bottles despite also not being able to join us due to illness (but greatto meet Rory attending in his place)
- to Julian and Martin for stepping in to take over from Christopher and taking charge for the evening

Some ups and downs as always with bottles of this age.
Negatives first: Only one majorly faulty bottle - an undrinkable SW; the Cr had very faint TCA (but faint enough for most people to not detect, and still enjoyable), and the Ho was poor but we perhaps only had very low expectations which were just about met. F and Ni did not show as well for me as previous bottlings, where I would have expected them both to be contenders for WOTN but not for me on this occasion (though I note that the group still voted the Ni into third place, while F came 10th of 15 in the evening tasting).
On to the positives, and there were lots so I'll just pick a few highlights:
At lunchtime, the ports all showed well (yes, I'm ignoring the Hooper, which is what most of us decided to do). The magnums beat the singles in the voting, perhaps as expected, though I personally felt that the Taylors were extremely similar, and initially I had the Sandeman single over the magnum but reversed that once we'd cooled the magnum - temperature matters! The biggest surprise for me at lunch was the GB which I really enjoyed and hugely exceeded my expectation, it was lovely.
In the "evening" (started at 4pm rather than 6pm as we were thirsty!), the first mention has to go to the glorious Dow, the clear WOTN both for me and for the group, fabulous port; I had W and G just behind, so the Symingtons showing very well here. The Noval and the Martinez were also particularly good, so some lovely ports on show.
Very noticeable was that by the end of the session, pretty much everyone's placemats were empty (SW aside), which I don't think reflected any lack of sufficient port (though were perhaps a touch light at lunch), just the quality of the vintage.

Overall, thanks to everyone for the excellent ports and company, and a very enjoyable day.

This is the fourth 1955 horizontal I've been lucky enough to attend in the last decade. This was probably the one with the most bottles not showing as well as I expected, but the lunchtime magnum vs bottle session absolutely convinced me that this is a superb vintage which is drinking extremely well - especially when you open a well cellared bottle.

A good Cockburn 1955 is a joy to behold and the one at this tasting was no exception - it was my wine of the tasting and remains one of my favourite from this vintage. I agree with Phil in that the Dow 1955 excellent, but I had the Cockburn slightly ahead of it.

CSD asked me offline where I would place the 1955 vintage among its peers. Based on these four tastings I would have it just behind 1970 - but I'll open 1970 happily at home over a weekend while I would only open 1955 to share with friends so I have a lot more experience with 1970!

And for those interested, the order I gave Chris was 1970, 1955, 1966, 1960, 1963 and 1977.

Love reading about this!