Sat 12 Oct 2002, Southwark, Taylor and Graham

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jdaw1
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Sat 12 Oct 2002, Southwark, Taylor and Graham

Post by jdaw1 »

Sat 12 Oct 2002, Chez RKA and CLA, whose guests were JDAW, RML, and MJM. Two other guests were expected (PY and his then girlfriend), but didn’t arrive. Placemats Taylor and Graham.

Taylor 1927, 1966, 1970, 1977; Graham 1970, 1977 single and two magnums. A good evening for seven; too much for five.

Taylor 1927: immediately after decanting a fantastic dark ruby edged with brown. Faint bouquet, stronger 15 minutes after decanting. Clear (not cloudy), in fine shape. Little sediment. Bouquet never strong, a little fruit showing. Blackcurrants strong when tasted in upper front teeth. At decanting + 2½ hours all agreed much much weaker and faded away (even at D+100 minutes). Also noteworthy that it faded much faster in glass than in decanter. The last of the decanting was into a glass, which stood for an hour and was then nearly tasteless.

Taylor 1966: still full heavy rich fruity. No burnt tone, good spice. Could be kept, but no advantage. RML remarked on very long palate, in a pleasing (“harmonic”) way. Most interesting Port RML has ever had.

Taylor 1970: darker and drier and spicier than the Taylor 1966. Less fruit. I thought more interesting. RML: “less volume”, “less round”, “less resonance”. Clearly richer and better than G70.

Graham 1970: softer lighter and less interesting than Taylor 1970. Nice, but not as good.

Taylor 1977: largest bouquet of all, softer and fruitier than the G77s. Ready, and sufficiently soft that no need to keep.

Graham 1977, in single, in magnum I and in magnum II. Very similar, with single generally preferred. Magnum II (which had a damaged cork, slightly rotten cork) generally thought ever so marginally better.

On Sunday 13 October returned to chez RKA to ‘help’ with the remnants.

G70: a lot blander, still rich and full. RKA said “no bite to it”.
T77: very thin and devoid of feature. Did not survive the day.
G77 single: bouquet thinner than before. Less fruit, still some spice, but clearly weaker than the day before.
G77 magnum II: both single decanters containing the magnum II still with some spice, less fruit, good length. Untouched decanter perhaps marginally better.
G77 magnum I: had acquired a bad (though non-faint) flavour. Not liked.

(And apologies for the delay in transcribing this note.)
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