1962 Offley

Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Alex Bridgeman
Graham’s 1948
Posts: 14880
Joined: 13:41 Mon 25 Jun 2007
Location: Berkshire, UK

1962 Offley

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

An unknown bottle, sealed crudely with black wax leading me to believe this was probably a private house bottling. The cork was branded and read "Offley Boa Vista Vintage 1962". The bottle bore a label reading "Lurcocks of Lenham £25.50".

A wonderful tone of pale rose red, watery in appearance on the rim; 30% opaque. Wonderful dusty cherries and beeswax on the nose, with many other smells edging around the senses; very inviting and something needed to be sniffed for a while. The beeswax shows on the entry with a fine dose of acidity that dominates at first until the palate adjusts. When the acidity fades back into a complex of citrus fruit - lemon, grapefruit, lime - it allows the rose hip to show through. Elegant and mid-weight on the palate, this delivers a fierce and somewhat dry aftertaste before turning over to a long finish of burnt matches and fresh grapefruit zest. Very acidic, very flavoursome and very much still alive. A fine bottle from a vintage with a modest reputation today but which was once viewed by the cognoscenti as rivalling 1963.

After another 30 minutes in the glass the acidity had mellowed and allowed some delicious brown sugar and pine needle flavours to develop on the palate, adding to the complexity and to the overall quality (and score) by a point. 89/100. Drunk 11-Mar-17. Decanted ½ hour.
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.

2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
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