warre's

Rushed impressions – recent blind tastings

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1998 Ch Coutet 14%
2000 Ch Coutet 14% (Semillon 90%, Sav Blanc 9% muscadelle 1%)
Neither are from a “top” year, yet Coutet seems to have a knack of over-delivering for its price. Both these wines are in the drink soon category.

Barsac, both swerved blind- I had to beg a small sample of the second, as our table’s bottle was TCA affected. These were stylistically similar, both showing obvious development of colour and aromatics; the older wine slightly flatter, with orange marmalade and icing sugar notes; the second wine with vanilla, light pineapple, camphor – and certainly some forgivable floor polish VA – cinnamon notes, and altogether a better wine than its components indicate.

89 and 91 points respectively

2003 Taylors Vintage Port
Portugal. Our table’s bottle was again TCA affected, but remnants from another bottle arrived.

Cherries and other red fruits, almond meal, liquorice and light tannin- pleasant but slightly skinny; my guess was an LBVP or a quinta wine. After the “reveal”, this was a disappointment from this maker and looked more advanced than expected. Maybe a lesser bottle?

Drink to 2027, 88 points

1980 warres vp 2

1980 Warre’s Vintage Port 20%
Portugal. This was a much more vibrant and youthful bottle than the one I described a few months ago.

Developed but still ruby; blue fruits abound (a pointer to Portugal), roses, mixed spices; a soft but hauntingly persistent palate – mocha, fine dark creamy chocolate, integrated spirit, mixed red and dark berries.

Drink to 2032, and 94 points

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Three more vintage ports

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1996 ch reynella vp again

1996 Chateau Reynella Vintage port 19%
Shiraz, McLaren Vale, bottle #532. Served blind.
Ruby with some bricking, dark berries, mint and camphor. Sweet dark berry flavours, mocha, liquorice, sweet spices, ample tannin but absolutely ready to drink.
Drink to 2030, 92 points. (an uncanny similar description to my post from March this year)

1980 warre's vp

1980 Warre’s Vintage Port 20%
Portugal. Served blind.
Ruby colour, camphor, cardamon, wax, putty. I was suspicious that there was a faint whisp of TCA, but it was invisible on the palate, so I relented. Palate is soft, with mocha and some figgy character with headsy spirit. This is a wine where the fruit was playing second fiddle to the spirit, but the whole seemed better than its components
Drink to 2030, 92 points (and there may be better bottles around)

1980 taylors vp

1980 Taylor’s Vintage Port  
Portugal. Served blind.
Ruby colour, with some browning. Putty, cherry and almond. Palate drier than Australian, with marzipan and cherry; spirit slightly sharp, but a winner on the flavour persistence stakes.
My initial age range was 1975-1985, and when options came up as 77/80/83 I correctly selected 1980. (However, I got the house wrong- I don’t drink enough Portuguese VPs!)
Drink to 2035, 94 points

Three wines, at least two learnings

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1982 S&K VP

1982 Stanton and Killeen Vintage Port 19%
Rutherglen Shiraz, from a vintage rated as 9/10 by the winemaker.

Forty years old , and the cork has held up. Bricky colour, but nothing out of order.
Black fruits, mocha, fresh red liquorice, and vanilla bean; almond and clove spices join in. Light milk chocolate, soft palate. Easy to ask for more.

Drink to 2025, and a resounding 91 points

Warre’s Optima 20 Year old Tawny Port 20%
Portugal, bottled in 2013 (and served blind)

Light khaki colour, and packed with toffee, caramel, vanilla, fruit peel, and citrus. Light on its feet, lingering, everything in its place…except one sensitive taster mentioned mousiness.

This is – fortunately for me-not easy to detect (it depends on mouth pH and other factors), else it would ruin my enjoyment of many fortified wines. Mousiness can occur in non-fortified wines, seemingly more prevalent with no-early-SO2 wines (hello, natural wines again). A brief article by Jamie Goode is here.

I can find mousiness via the “skin test”, smearing it over my wrist and waiting for evaporation. The result can be horrific – I liken it to burnt bacon, corn chips and popcorn with a bitter, harsh and unfortunately persistent flavour. Once detected, it’s impossible to overlook –  I’ve had worse than this wine, but…

Avoid. No score.

2008 Ca’ d’gal vite vecchia Moscato d’asti 5%
Piedmont, Italy (served blind)

Partiallly obvious what this was – the frizzante, slightly sparkling style (around 1.5 atmospheres – Champagne is 4.5-6), the sweetness (90-100 g/l) and obvious grapey muscat aromatic. However, instead of merely the usual refreshing sherbetty and “fun” approach, this wine had much more complexity – chamomile, lime, beeswax/candlewax, a spice-bucket with mandarin citrus. Flavours mirrored this, and while still bracingly vibrant, bonus merit for its surprising cellarability and the exotic souk perfumes, Aged for 5 years in bottle, and look at the meagre alcohol level! Obvious ageing potential here. The producer makes a range; this is the old-vine flagship, No surprise its> $120.

Scoring presents a conundrum – Moscato d’asti is user-friendly, but this was well beyond my expectations of the style. It startled me, and led to some research.

Drink now, and 95 points