We tried these in my tasting last week:
10C. MartinBros Primitivo Appassito PasoRobles Zin Port (18%; Hrvstd after first freeze of Nov 1990;"Some Sack, Francis") 1990: Med.light tawny color w/ slight browning; strong late harvesty/jammy/porty/boysenberry lots of very ripe/young fruit nose w/ little complexity; rather sweet some boysenberry/overripe/jammy/chocolaty some alcoholic/fumey flavor w/ little tannins; long jammy/boysenberry/overripe/Zin fruit some alcoholic/fumey finish w/ little tannins; lots more overripe fruit than the S.
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10S. MartinBros Primitivo Appassito PasoRobles Zin Port (18%; Hrvstd after first freeze of Nov 1990; "Some Sack, Francis") 1990: Slightly more browning in color; some cedary/oak slight oxidized/tobaccoey some overripe/jammy/boysenberry/Zin/late harvesty bit alcoholic nose; soft rather sweet lighter boysenberry/jammy/overripe/chocolatey slight oxidized/sherry bit alcoholic/fumey finish w/ light tannins; a bit less overripe/late harvesty Zin fruit and a bit more oxidized character more like an old Calif Port.
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And a wee BloodyPulpit:
1. These were two orphan btls I found. The 10S was stored, standing upright, in my temperature-uncontrolled study (S) for some 20 yrs. Not good storage conditions, in the low 50's in the winter and the mid-upper 80's in June/July. The 10C was stored on its side in my cellar (C), where it gets to 60F (air-conditioned) in the summer and drops down into the mid-low 30's in the winter. I thought this would be an interesting comparison.
The corks on both btls were solid, w/ the C one pretty soft & saturated. Both came out w/o crumbling. The fill levels were about the same on both w/ little signs of leakage.
The C btl clearly had more boysenberry/overripe fruit to it and most preferred it. The S clearly had a bit more sherry/oxidation character and I actually found it more like an old Calif port and a bit more interesting.
Maybe I'll enter this experiment into the PinonGradeSchool ScienceFair in January?
This wine was made at MartinBrosWnry by NickMartin back in his days there.
Tom