1961 Calem Colheita (bottled 2011)

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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Will W.
Taylor’s LBV
Posts: 183
Joined: 14:33 Thu 11 Aug 2016

1961 Calem Colheita (bottled 2011)

Post by Will W. »

Mrs. T lives in Devon and was born in 1961; she is very kind and funny. Mrs. T is also the mother of a promising young writer. All credit to her. The more relevant point for our purposes is that Mrs. T’s son is a pal of mine; and, when the young T brought his mother to supper, I reckoned a ’61 to be in order. The lot of us at the table were not disappointed. By the port, and more so by the company.

Bottled in 2011, the tawny was afforded an hour to breath on 17 June 2022. In the glass, the wine was largely opaque – unsurprising after fifty years in a pipe – and was redolent of mid-strength tea with a yellow-green rim. The hint of cloud which could be discerned was likely a function of my failure to have stood the bottle upright in good time. At the nose, the wine presented as would a classic tawny. Strong notes of walnut, linden, vanilla, brûlée and nutmeg vied for attention, the lot being bound up with a remarkable freshness for a wine which had reposed for fifty years in a barrel and another ten in glass. At the fore-palate, the wine was sweet; in particular, it reminded one of burned sugar and honey, which is very much in the Calem colheita style. At the mid-point, the early sweetness gave way to a wave of citrus zest, with unripe peach holding court at the back. The finish was of grand length, at which the peach ripened and came together in a very pleasing manner with the walnut, nutmeg and much else. This middleweight port’s strong acidity cut nicely through the ample residual sugar and proffered a nod to Mrs. T’s welcome presence. If Calem has more of this wine in pipes, I should very much like to try it again for one would expect much from its continued maturation in oak combined with less opportunity to soften in the bottle.

-91.5 points
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