1985 port dinner

It's been a busy few weeks, including another very enjoyable trip to Pennsylvania. No hiking this time due to the weather, but D and I did a lot of running around including attending a "cash bash" in aid of the animal shelter, a trip to the granite depot to look at granite for our new kitchen, and a visit to the Pittsburgh auto show which was fun. 

My London social life resumed this week with an invitation to the 1985 port horizontal hosted by the Port Forum.    

A sight for sore eyes!

G had organised it, and I believe we ended up tasting 16 ports between 12 of us. The jugs of water were relegated to a side table to pack them all in.

My general impression was that 1985 was a good year, and many of these were drinking very nicely now. A few were getting a little elderly, and a few still had a lot of life in them. There was some significant colour variation and it turned out that a dark colour was a good sign. 

My top three were Ramos Pinto, Martinez and Fonseca. I believe the Fonseca was port of the evening on points, and was something of a crowd pleaser. It had an intense black cherry nose and no sign of age. It's widely available and has years left in it.

The Ramos Pinto was really interesting. I hadn't heard of this port house before. It was brought along by someone who lives in Lisbon, who described them as very reliable. This was very much my cup of tea, with a lot of pontefract cake action and what G described as blackstrap molasses. 

The Martinez reminded me of black forest gateau, almost the Morey St Denis of the port world, and was drinking perfectly now. It brought a smile to my face.

Honourable mentions go to the Gould Campbell, the Smith Woodhouse, the Warre, the Graham and the Offley. One surprise of the evening was on the tasting mat as TTD. It turned out to be Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, which was light and pretty, and reminded me of a tawny. It received no points from anyone but we did enjoy it. As with the Eurovision Song Contest, the scoring system does tend to concentrate the points for the winners.

For once, there was nothing truly undrinkable as such. In my view the worst wine of the evening was the Rebello Valente which smelled distinctly of varnish, as if there'd been an accident in the woodshed, although strangely some chaps down the other end of the table gave it a few points. The Dow was also not a great bottle, and apparently there's a lot of bottle variation with this one. And the Pocas was a bit unusual, not unpleasant but more like a sherry, with some citrus marmalade. 

All in all, a fun and educational evening, and thanks to G for inviting me.