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
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
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
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
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 da Romaneira Vintage 2004
Tasting revealed a rich and fruity port with deep plummy flavours and without any harshness or disagreable characteristics at all. It was sweet and redolent with fresh red berry tastes despite the fact that the berries had been picked twenty years ago. I raise my glass to the roga who brought these grapes in from the field so that it could bring me so much pleasure after the passage of twenty years.
