WTN: Burgundy and old vintage Port

Yesterday was my birthday. I celebrated with coq au vin followed by Port and stilton. The wines:

1996 Musigny Vielles Vignes, Comte Georges de Vogue

Everything one could ask for from a well-aged top grand cru Burgundy. Complexity, power, and graceful balance. Drinking well now but no hurry. Triple Curly with an extra Woo! Woo!

1955 Vintage Porto, Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman

Decades ago I grabbed several bottles of vintage Port from my birth year and I open them on special birthdays. 70 certainly qualifies. This is my next-to-the-last bottle of '55 Taylor. It is still in perfect condition. Like all very old vintage Ports it has evolved into a very different beast from what usually comes to mind when one thinks of mature vintage Port. It has a faded, translucent brick-red color and somewhat shy but very complex Port-type aromas. In the mouth the complex Port flavors have faded and the sweetness and alcohol are more noticeable than they were when the wine was in its 30s. It still makes a great pairing with stilton. Triple Larry.

-Paul W.

[David M. Bueker]

Happy birthday! That’s a wonderful pair of wines.

1955 Vintage Porto, Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman

Decades ago I grabbed several bottles of vintage Port from my birth year and I open them on special birthdays. 70 certainly qualifies.

Indeed. Why not celebrate!

Sounds like two nice wines.

I love old ports - they seem to be eternal. I have 3 bb of the 63 Fonseca that was exported directly from the producer to Berry Bros, in the UK. Never had a label on them, just the usual splash of white paint to indicate which way up to cellar them. Keep looking for an excuse to open one, but it needs to be an occasion to share it.....

I've been lucky enough to sample 19th C. ports and 18th C. Madeiras but I think I've only tasted the 1955 port once. What great foresight to stash some away!

Happy Birthday!
I've had '55 Piedmonts, Rioja, and Bdx, but can't remember having a 1955 port, Fun!

[Jenise]

Incredible stuff. Happy birthday, Paul, glad you're being good to yourself!

I've been lucky enough to sample 19th C. ports and 18th C. Madeiras but I think I've only tasted the 1955 port once.

I think 1955 and 1960 got overlooked due to all the (deserved) excitement over the 1963 Port vintage. I only bought '55s because it is my birth year. I haven't had the opportunity to taste any Ports older than '55. I managed to pick up some Quinta do Noval Nacionals (thank you Rare Wine Company). I opened one of the 1970s 10 or 15 years ago and it wasn't ready yet.

18th century Madeiras! Wow. The oldest I've tasted is an 1834 Bual. I bought a few bottles and opened the first one in 2010 in memory of my father when he died. If you have any, there's no rush to drink it up. Enjoy it over the next two centuries. I hope to be around to celebrate that wine's 200th birthday.

-Paul W.

Piling on... HB, Paul! And that was a wow pair of wines!

I've had 1960 port (birthyear) several times but it isn't holding up well. A wine friend born in 1963 is having much better luck procuring good bottles of that.

When we moved into this house I bought a bottle of 1834 malvasia. It was wonderful. Here is a note on it, from Chris Coad, who had a way with words:

Barbeito Reserva Velha Madeira Malvasia 1834.

I'm not normally a Madeira fan, but if you're pouring a one-hundred-seventy year old wine, I'll sit up and pay attention. It's a deep walnutty-chocolate color, tinged with orange at the rim. Smells extraordinary, a potpourri of pickled figs*, orange rind, toasted marshmallow, vanilla and molasses, enlivened and couched in a shrill acidic sourness. A sip, and it's a intensely harmonious cacophony of sweetness, sourness, hardness and intense flavor, a truly compelling blend that's not found outside of really good old Madeira. Shrill and hard, sweet and layered, a burst of sweet-sour nutty, pomander-spice notes, a flash of spiritousness, more dark figgy-molasses flavors laced with spicy orange-apricot, then an explosive finish that bursts with all of the above, then slides slowly away, leaving the inside of my mouth agitated, humming like a tuning fork. My god, that's a wild ride. Intense, a bit of a pain/pleasure experience that leaves me feeling rumpled, with a welling up of post-coital melancholy when it's done.

I've been manhandled by a Madeira, and I think I like it. I need a cigarette.

Happy Birthday, Paul! What a great pair of wines to celebrate with.

I've had 1960 port (birthyear) several times but it isn't holding up well. A wine friend born in 1963 is having much better luck procuring good bottles of that.

Yup, I have a few close friends who are '60ers and it's always been tough to find good birthyear wines for them. Port has been the go-to.

Jean and I have the opposite problem: I was born in '59 and she in '61, so there's no shortage of good birthyear wines, but the pricing.... Carrying on the family tradition, our son was born in '04, so I stocked up on Muscadet, Rioja and Piemontese reds. I'm now down to a handful of '04 Barolos and Barbarescos as well as some '04 Laurel Glen Cab.