Morrison's The Best 10 Year Old Bottled In 2024

 Morrison's The Best 10 Year Old Bottled In 2024

Clear reddish brown colour with old citrus hints on the nose. Tasting revealed a rich and full bodied port. The taste was of cooked citrus fruits combined with a dry oakiness and a sweetness that brought the whole thing together. What surprised me was the lingering depth of this port because I wasn't expecting a supermarket offering to be this good. The price was £14 a bottle to holders of a Morrison's store card; I have tasted 10 year olds at twice this price that this could stand up against.

Cockburn's LBV 2019

 Cockburn's LBV 2019

Deep ruby colour with a lightly fruity nose. The initial taste was sweet and spicy then the plummy fruit flavours came in as the mouthful was swallowed. This left a lingering rich, peppery and fruity taste to enjoy between sips.

Graham's LBV 2019

 Graham's LBV 2019

Deep and dark ruby colour with good plummy fruits on the nose. This port was pleasantly balanced with good depth. There was an underlying gentle sweet fruitiness and this was matched with tannin and wood flavours to add richness and complexity to the mix. All in all not a bad port for everyday drinking.

Morrison's Ruby Port

Morrison's Ruby Port

Here we go with another supermarket sub £10 ruby port. It had a light ruby colour with a fruity nose. There was a rich and sweet flavour with tannins at the back of the palate. However any fruitiness was masked by a marked contribution from aldehydes. By that I mean the distinctive flavour that you experience when you suck on pear drops. If you like that sort of flavour in your port then you may appreciate this bottle at a very reasonable price. However I am not so keen as you get the same thing in a vintage port that has been decanted for too long.

Taylor's Select Ruby Port

 Taylor's Select Ruby Port

My ruby port supply became seriously depleted so I decided to try a couple of bottles from out local Coop. Having just tried the sub £10 Coop Ruby and found it to be not too bad at all, here is a somewhat more expensive offering from Taylor's. It has a deep ruby colour with a lightly fruity nose. Tasting revealed a rich sweet wine with good depth. There were hints of jammy fruits but the fullness in the mouth was more striking. So for the conclusion this had greater strength and depth than the Coop offering but the latter did have an interesting plummy fruitiness about it. I honestly can't say which I prefer but you'll save yourself a deal of money if the Coop offering is to your taste.

Coop Ruby Port

 Coop Ruby Port

Well here we are with a sub £10 bottle of port from the local Coop. Do you need to pay more? Let's find out. There was a typical dark red colour with a promisingly fruity nose. Tasting revealed a rich plummy taste, which was well rounded and mouth filling. There were hints of smoothness masked by strong tannins. I doubt that this was more than three or four years in the balseiro but nevertheless at this price it is difficult to fault it. I have tasted far worse.

Offley 10 Year Old Bottled In 2024

 Offley 10 Year Old Bottled In 2024

Clear and deep reddish brown colour with a rich nose of cooked citrus fruits and old oak. Tasting was quite an experience as it changed so much as it went down. To start with there was a combination of slightly sweet burnt orange and dry oak but as it went down there was a blossoming of rich floral flavours in the midst of the rich citrus and nuts nuances. A very worthy representative of ports of this delimination of age.

Casal Dos Jordões Porto Finest Reserve

 Casal Dos Jordões Porto Finest Reserve

Deep ruby colour with just a hint of plummy fruit on the nose. Aha, on tasting I come across a style or port that I haven't encountered for a while. The feeling is soft in the mouth with gentle but rich plummy fruit flavors in the foreground and just a little touch of tannin to give it structure. 

Morrison's Special Reserve Port

 Morrison's Special Reserve Port

Well here we are with a seriously inexpenive UK supermarket port. However if you read the small print on the back of the label it says that the Symingtons had a hand in its production so it can't be that bad. It has a deep ruby colour but only a lightly floral nose. Tasting is quite a surprise because, whereas it is not spectacular, there is a good balance between soft fruit jammy flavours and a tannic background giving it depth. At the price I think it would be hard to beat as an everyday drinking port unless, of course, you have deep pockets.

Quinta Das Carvalhas Vintage 2004

 Quinta Das Carvalhas Vintage 2004

We bought this over 18 years ago at the quinta for just around £20. Let's see if it was a worthwhile investment. I must say that I was pretty impressed with deep inky red colour when I started to decant it. In my experience most single quinta vintages have lost quite a bit of colour by the time they get to 20 years old. Not this one though, it resemble something at least four times what we paid for it.

 The nose had fruity hints amongst the smell of ethanol. On first tasting this was a rich and full bodied port with jammy fruit flavours underlaying a distinct spiciness. There were marked aldehyde notes as well, which you may or may not like. However after a couple of hours these had disappeared leaving a quite impressive classical vintage port..As was suggested by the original observations on the colour, this wine stands its own against much more expensive offerings from the classical port houses. Which just goes to show that you don't have to spend a fortune to be able to enjoy a stunning vintage port but you may need a little patience waiting for it to mature. Now to sit back and thoroughly enjoy the rich plummy fruit flavours married to classical touriga spice.

Waitrose No1 Tawny Reserve

 Waitrose No1 Tawny Reserve

 Here we have a tawny port put together by the Symingtons for Waitrose.

The colour was a deep brown amber with a hint of red. There was just a little nuttiness in the nose. In the mouth it was well rounded with a good body and a smooth feel. The predominant flavour was a fair amount of dry oak mellowed by a sweet fruitiness. I hesitate to refer to prunes but that was the word that sprung to mind. But yes, the fruitiness really was of a dried plum nature but in a more subtle way than you get from eating tinned prunes. All together a very approachable example of a reserve tawny port that you don't have to take out a loan for to buy.

Quinta do Crasto Vintage 2004

Quinta do Crasto Vintage 2004

Here we are with another Crasto Vintage from Sainsbury's that has been in our cellar for a good many years.

 

There was a dark ruby colour with a significant amount of oxidation. The nose was a mixture of plummy fruits and strong alcohol. The taste was rich and fruity with a long finish. A little spiciness remained from the tannins but in a beneficial way giving structure to the overall flavour.