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In 2010 the annual Christmas event, The Unknown Shipper and His Peculiar Friends, happened on Thursday 16 December.

Links:

• Review of the evening as whole;
• Tasting notes:
  • 1904 Croft;
  • Unknown, perhaps 1917 Taylor;
  • 1917 Unknown, perhaps Croft or Fonseca;
  • 1927 Martinez;
  • 1942 Niepoort;
  • 1947 Smith Woodhouse;
  • 1955 Barros;
  • 1955 Taylor;
  • 1955 Tuke Holdsworth;
  • 1966 Fonseca;
  • Vargellas Crusted bottled 1969;
  • 30Y Niepoort Tawny;
• Planning and arrangements;
• Paperwork (tasting-note sheets, and several sets of stickers).

Good colour. Browning round the edge. Green apples on the nose. Slightly bitter in the mouth. Probably not ancient but very old. c.1909-1917, perhaps?

Bottle was pale glass and looked to be early 20th C. The cork is branded, but the branding was too faint to read.

Very pale, cloudy, with a brown - almost green - rim. Sweet, buised apples all over the nose. Modest entry, very restrained; dried out and turning bitter. Rosemary dominates the palate. Tingling aftertaste, full of rosemary. Not dead, but desperately clinging to life. (Guessed as perhaps a Taylor 1917.) 84/100.