One of two bottles purchased from Sworders this week. Fill level was just below neck. The bottle had been stood for 12 hours prior to an 8 hour decant.
On removing the foil there appeared to be what looked like sand around the cork. The cork crumbled on extraction.
It is a dark red, perhaps similar to something from the early 1990's. It tasted strongly of eucalyptus and hints of mint and improved drastically over the course of the 8 hour decant. If anything, I feel it could do with slightly longer. I'm honestly not sure where this port is going but I feel it has at least another 10 years to make up it's mind.
90 points for now.
Luckily I have enough left in the decanter to try tonight.
1977 Graham
- Alex Bridgeman
- Graham’s 1948
- Posts: 14902
- Joined: 13:41 Mon 25 Jun 2007
- Location: Berkshire, UK
Re: 1977 Graham
You were lucky! The "sand" is probably cork crumbs, which is evidence of cork weevil (aka woodworm) having attached the cork. If it had got to the wine it would have given it that horrible flavour we were talking about at the Christmas offline.
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.
2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
Re: 1977 Graham
Ahhh! I must of been rather lucky! The wine improved with more time in the decanter and I would assess a 12 hour decant is about right. Is the presence of cork weevil in one bottle indicative of it being in others from a similar stash?
Re: 1977 Graham
Not necessarily, even if this bottle came from an intact case. Especially in the US, a "case" of Port is likely an amalgamation of bottles from multiple sources, so there's little to actually tie one bottle to another. In the UK where actual OWC are more common there's slightly more to it, but it's still not enough to worry about in my opinion.
Glenn Elliott