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1940 Graham Single Harvest Tawny (bottled 2019)

Bottled 2019.

Looks like madeira, smells like madeira. Blind from the nose I would have said a 80% Malaysia 20% B**tardo blend from the first half of the C20th. I accept that's not necessarily helpful so, to put it in other terms, a brown fortified wine with a slightly green rim with a nose that betrays very long wood ageing and has very attractive but piercing notes of marmalade and herbs.

It tastes like... itself. The rancio is there from 79 years in cask but it is still distinctively port, even if the flavours are fig now rather than cherry. Very long dry finish, with candied pineapple.

Brilliantly balanced.

The star for me of a stellar wine evening that featured, inter alia, Dom Perignon 2002, Haut Brion 1995, and Latour 1995.

A very different wine in terms of intensity from the 1963 and 1974 we all had recently and frankly streets ahead in my book.

The retail price is preposterous but the wine is astonishing.

They have done a splendid job on this series of Single Harvest Tawny's.

The retail price on the 1940 really is crazy, though. I would love to try it, but I can get a 1937 AND a 1952 Kopke for that price!

It is a crazy price. But my note above does not even begin to do justice to it. Words literally cannot describe the effect on me of the combination of the intensity and the balance of this wine. I have never had anything quite like it and I am still a bit overwhelmed by it 24 hours later.

It was not just a tawny port, it was a great wine, and one to match the best madeiras of the same era (but not requiring a fortnight of decanting); and in truth it is the only colheita port I have ever had that persuaded me that their matching the best madeiras was actually possible.

I was very happy to be present at its opening. A generous fellow wine nut had thought, when it was first released, 'Oh, that will do brilliantly for my next dinner for [name of group*]' and snapped it up.

*we take it in turns to host a dinner for 12; there's one dinner every two months so we come up to host about once every couple of years. Allows for planning.

Glenn E. wrote: ↑17:59 Thu 02 Sep 2021 The retail price on the 1940 really is crazy, though. I would love to try it, but I can get a 1937 AND a 1952 Kopke for that price!

It’s not a crazy price. It’s an absolutely astonishing wine which is just stunning to taste. It is very fairly priced.

What is crazily priced are the 1937 and 1952 Kopke colheitas. But, be warned, the crazy Kopke prices may not be around for ever.

I accept Alex's point - when compared against the retail price of other ports from the 1940s it is not a crazy price. So the cost is preposterous, but neither its price nor that of other superb ports of similar vintages is crazy.